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NAZER 

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Philosophy 



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NAZER. 



(A ZIG-ZAG PHILOSOPHY.) 



COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE. 



AUTHOT. OF 

"A CHECKERED LIFE," "PECULIAR POEMS," SONGS, 
SPEECHES, ETC. 



Fate coniniaiiils fortune and failure. 



*0! what fools these mortals lie." — Shakesp*ai 



-s^do 



CHICAGO: 

REGAN PRINTING HOUSE, PUBLISHERS, 

87, 8g & gi TiiiKD Ave. 



COPTRtGHTKD BT 

J. A. JOYCE. 



etJication. 



I DEDICATE THIS WIERD BOOK TO MY DAUGHTER, 

LIBBIE 

WITH THE UNCHAMGING AFFECTION OF 
HER FATHER. 



PERSONS REPRESENTED. 



Laura Love. — Queen of the World. 



' Love like a shadow flies, when substance love pursues; 
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues." — Shakspeare. 



Horace Hate. — Czar of the Earth. 

" Had I power, I should pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, 
Uprear the universal peace, confound all unity on earth." — Shakspeare. 



Harry Hope. — Page to the Queen. 



"True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings; 
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures Kings." — Shakspeare. 



Terra Truth. — The Everlasting. 

"Oh, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil." — Shakspeare. 

Hallam Hypocrisy. — A Politician. 

" Look like the time: hear welcome In your eye, your hand, your tongue : 
Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it." — Shakspeare. 



Ella Envy. — A common gossip. 



" O, what a world is this, when what is comely — 
Envenoms him that bears it." — Shakspeare. 



George Generosity. — A prodigal son. 



' For his bounty, 
There was no AVinter in't ; an Autumn twas, 
That grew the more by reaping." — Shakspeare. 



Waller Wit. — A fool and philosopher. 



" Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit ; 
By and by It will strike." — Shakspeare. 



Diana Despair. — A cloudy creature. 



' O God ! God ! 
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable 
Seems to me all the uses of this world." — Shakspeare.. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page. 
The Passions Assembled at Mount Olympus 9 

CHAPTER II. 
The Dawn and Separation 13 

CHAPTER III. 
An Autobiography 15 

CHAPTER IV. 
A Peep at the Past — 20 

CHAPTER V. 
Nazer, the City of Sorrow — 24 

CHAPTER VI. 
TiGRANNAs; Ingratitude Rebuked - 33 

CHAPTER VII. 
A Visit to People of the Past 41 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Rome and its Power.. 52 

CHAPTER IX. 
On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris 84 

CHAPTER X. 
London, its Guilt and Glory. 112 

CHAPTER XI. 
A Temperate Talk _— 15S 

CHAPTER XII. 
Soaring, Prophecy, Justice.. .^.. 166 



PREFACE. 



The object in writing and publishing this volume is to 
satirize the folly, duplicity, venality and tyranny of mankind. 

The characters who talk are ubiquitous, and the com- 
mon rules of time, place and person are entirely ignored and 
defied. 

The past, present and future become one, or separate, 
at the ideal wand and will of the author, 

A few rare and beautiful bits of poetic thought are en- 
meshed and interwoven in this philosophy. 

J. A. J. 




CHAPTER I. 

THE PASSIONS ASSEMBLED AT MOUNT OLYMPUS. 

Love : Billions of innumerable years have passed 
away, my sardonic Horace, since first we met on this 
grand mountain top to talk of life and death. Yon 
blue field of Omnipotence, gemmed with diamond stars 
of heavenly light and love, and that round full moon 
sailing in pale grandeur through mysterious realms — 
shine on iis to-night with the same spiritual radiance 
that illumined her birth. The comet, eclipse and hur- 
ricane have come and gone in regular round, while 
earthquake shocks and volcanic fires have changed the 
face of the globe, rearing mountains out of the ocean 
and sinking the tallest peaks of the world into her 
wild womb where deepest coral caves echo to the un- 
ceasing voice of Nature. 

Look, far away, where the king of day rises out of his 
watery bath in the East to illuminate by his majestic 
footsteps the plains and mountains of remote antiquity. 
There, before the Arian, Persian or Egyptian races 
bowed down to worship the smiles of the sun, vast 
myriads of mankind lingered at his shrine and sunk 
back to the dust from whence they sprung, leaving no 
record or monument to magnify their memory. Be- 
hold, in full splendor, the morning sun ! 

9 



10 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

Shine out thou glorious sun upon a sleeping world, 
And thrill the soul with fires from above — 
Where thunderbolts are forged and flashed and hurled 
By one Almighty hand, source of light and love. 
Arise, and stride across the ocean billow, 
And light thy pathway o'er the vales and hills, 
Go shine, where beauty dreams upon her pillow 
And sparkles in the leaping mountain rills. 

Let stars and moons and planets in their sweeping 
Pale their light before the splendid sway, 
While I, my weary matin watch am keeping 
To catch the glory of the God of day. 

What does it all mean ? I have invited this morn- 
ing, seven of our friends to assemble under this great 
grove of pines to solve the problem of life, at least, 
and hear from each, words of love and hope that may 
do good to mankind, before we separate throughout 
the world in search of absolute peace and pleasure. 

Hate : Talk to me not of the good of mankind and 
pleasure that shall never be perfect. I hate the world, 
and with my handmaid Despair, I would gladly see 
the waters of the earth rise over all the continents and 
engulf the human race in one eternal, omniverous 
grave. I smile at desolation and death, and long to be 
married to the morgue of oblivion. I wish to ride on 
the crested wave of some universal billow, where I 
may nurse the pangs of Despair to my flinty heart. 

Love : Hark ! I hear the musical footsteps of my 
glorious Page — Hope. His face lights up my dark- 
est hour, and his voice like summer zephyrs, blowing 
over a grove of orange flowers, soothes me in the vale 
of deepest sorrow. Come to my arms and heart my 



The Passions Assembled at Mount Olympus, \\ 

bright boy, ever youug and beautiful. No cloud ever 
shadowed thy brow ; no storm ever chilled thy heart 
and no chance has ever yet put the palace of thy soul 
in ruins. 

Hope : My Love — My Queen. I flew with the 
wings of pure passion to sit at thy feet this glorious 
morning and listen to our brothers and sisters dis- 
course upon the way to find perfect happiness. 

Envy : How can there be any happiness when Gen- 
erosity dallies with Love, who imagines herself 
better than anyone else; and who forever fools the 
poor Prodigal out of his wits. 

Wit : That is more than she could do with you, 
for Envy, like your name, has so gangrened your cold 
heart that wit or generosity could never enter where 
malice sits enthroned. 

Hypocrisy : You seem to forget that Envy is one 
of my sweet sisters, and while I like you very well, 
you must not presume too much on my candid good 
nature. 

Truth : Oh ! thou canting hypocrite,, what cold 
and calculating lies emanate from thy duplicate lips 
and how often you wear the garb of God to serve the 
dictation of your master, the devil. I have seen you 
in church and state, through all the changing tides of 
time, and while constantly professing to be my dearest 
friend, I have found in the end that you are a knave at 
heart ; and like the catacombs of Egypt your soul as 
dry and vacant as the dusty sepulchres of its forgot- 
ten kings. We have assembled to take a survey of 



12 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy 

mankind, at the suggestion of Love, our Queen, ancl 
while many of you doubt the continuous force of her 
affection, you dare not deny the everlasting 
principle of Truth. It is ever fresh and young, never 
weary, never old and it shall never die. The first 
dawn of creation ushered in its lieavenly light ; and 
long after the temples and towers of earth shall be 
buried in the all-consuming maw of Time with the 
hands and hearts that reared them — Truth shall soar 
away on wings of celestial light and reign forever in 
immortal youth. 

" Marble and recording brass decay 
And like the graver's memory pass away; 
The works of man inherit, as is just, 
Their author's frailty, and return to dust; 
But Truth, divine forever, stands secure, 
Its head as guarded, as its base is sure. 
Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years 
The pillar of the eternal plan appears; 
The roaring storm and dashing wave defies 
Built bv that Architect that built the skies." 



CHAPTEB 11. 

The Dawn and Separation. 

Love : See, the fairy footsteps of the dawn has 
brushed away the magic mists upon the mountain tops, 
and over the blue bosom of the rolling sea the central 
sun extends his rosy fingers of light, to tangle them in 
the mermaid's flowing locks or pierce the coral caves 
where Neptune reigns supreme. Let us plume our 
broad wings and fly away in search of peace and per- 
fect pleasure. Hope and Hcde shall hie with me to a 
land where freedom reigns and where Nature 
herself echoes the glad notes of liberty. Truth shall 
have for companions Hypocrisy and Envy, and shall 
wander for years in oriental climes — and Generosity, 
my oldest brother, must join in the pangs of Despair 
and suffer the taunts of Wit, while wandering among 
Alpine heights, crumbling temples or Arctic solitudes. 
Year after year, at some designated spot, we may meet 
at the impulse of my desire, and while forever abiding 
with our personal nature we shall be ubiquitous. When 
many more billions of years shall be recorded in the 
defiles of the past, we may get a glimpse of the light- 
ning Spirit of Jehovah, who now veils fi'om oui' cloud- 
ed vision the secrets of His immortal realms. 

13 



14 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy, 

Love is a flower that never fades 
On valley, mountain or glen; 
Fresh as the blossoms of everglades 
It reigns o'er the hearts of men. 

As the last notes of this chorus died away, the nine 
passions arose from the pinnacle of Mount Olympus, 
Love, Hope and Hate bearing away to the West and 
North, Truth, Hypocrisy and Envy to the East, and 
Generosity, Despair and Wit to the South and sunny 
climes. 



CHAPTER III. 

An Autobiography. 

I am Fate. No living being in the vast worlds I 
create, manage and destroy lias ever caught a spark 
from the iron forge of my philosophy. This little earth 
is but a grain of sand to the illimitable spheres I gov- 
ern and inhabit. The smallest grass-blade, the tallest 
oak, the longest river, highest mountain, wildest ocean, 
the most beautiful butterfly, the largest or smallest 
stars, are but scrolls and emblems of my mammoth map 
of magnificence. 

Spring, Summer, Autumn, "Winter, and all the sea- 
sons of all my globes are only cog-wheels in the 
machinery of my unchanging, absolute, inevitable sys- 
tems. Nations rise and fall like bubbles on a stormy 
sea at my dictation. Suns, moons, planets and stars 
swing and shine in nameless space at my will — and 
then, " shoot from their glorious spheres and pass 
away to darkle in the trackless void." Yet, I go on for 
ever, with a whisj^er in the ear of the flowers, a roar 
in the heart of the storm, a tear in the eye of the rain, 
and a rod in the hand of the lightning. I am the soul 
and right arm of God. His will is mine and mine is 
His. 

15 



16 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

You hear in the voice of my thunder 
The glory and greatness of God; 
You see in the flash of the lightning 
The sweep of my glittering rod. 

You feel in the rush of the rain 
The flow of my melting tears, 
And hear in the midnight winds 
The music of all my spheres. 

You see in the limitless ocean 
The swell of my heaving breast, 
And the hour is near when you shall 
Sink to my bossom of infinite rest. 

Alexander, on the Indus, Caesar on the BuMeon, 
Napoleon on the Rhine, and Washington on the Dela- 
ware were only convenient instruments in the plan of 
my destruction and construction. The priests Avho 
mumbled their morning lies at the temple of Memnou, 
the purpled philosophers of Eome who pretend to in- 
fallibility, and the crowned cormorants of royal robbers, 
are but rusty links in the glittering chain of my 
divinity. Fools, fools, all fools, to pretend to fathom 
the depths of my eternal will. 

" The flood of years " that I have emptied into 
" the silent ocean of the past," are but a moment to 
the circling cycles that I shall call out of the womb of 
the future. Those on the earth to-day are but surf on 
the sea of life. 

The millions of earth that battle to-day 
Are but a handful to those passed away; 
The future is countless, — men from each zone 
Shall flourish and die in the far off " Unknown." 



Av Aufohiography. 17 

When matter and mind are perished and lost, 
And all that we see into chaos is tossed; 
From nothing to nothing we pass out alone 
Like a flash or an echo, "Unknown," Unknown." 

The babe that slumbers at its mother's breast; the 
maid and man that go hand in hand up thorny steeps 
or down flowery dells; the sage with flowing beard and 
snowy locks, and the king and queen with imperial 
power, shall leave their loves, hopes and fears and be 
overwhelmed and forgotten in the de^sths of my myster- 
ious ocean. The proud spirits of all mortality shall 
pass away, their clayey tenements shall go down to 
silent and impalpable dust, but they who Ijelieve in 
me and act the truth shall "someday" breathe and 
live in the fragrant gardens of omnipotence, where the 
refreshing waters of immortality flow and sparkle for- 
ever over the golden sands of my celestial dominions, 
and where the sweet songs of beautiful birds symplio- 
nize seraphic salvation. 

This life is but a rugged road, a narrow path and a 
stormy stepping stone to higher spheres. I ride on 
the broad back of the whirlwind, demolishing temples, 
towers and mountains in my Avild, mad career. I 
delve with the worm that never dies. In the secret 
caves of buried nations and on altars raised to the 
memory of forgotten gods I place the tooth of time that 
gnaws away to nothingness the moldering memories 
of man. The eye, ear and heart of my creatures are 
shut out from a view of my face and form, and an in- 
surmountable wall of dai'kness rears its bleak and rug- 



18 Nazer: a Zig-zag Pldlosophy. 

gecl ril3s to bar Life from viewing Death. Life must 
die to see Death, and Death must live to see Life. The 
good and the bad are of my creation. I am each in 
all, and all in each. To the sweetest rose I give the 
sharpest thorn, and to the delusive tongue of Hope I 
finally give the truest promise of faith and fortune. Out 
of the bottom of this cracked and shattered sphere I will 
raise up man to a higher plane of thought, and beyond 
the grave he shall shine with a luster fadeless and 
eternal. I sit enthroned with a cloak of ermine on 
silent arctic mountains, looking over ice bound seas. 
I walk in tropic isles in a garment of emerald green, 
and over the wild, wide earth I breathe upon the flow- 
ers in softest airs, and crack or shake its granite ribs 
with my ponderous tread. The last breath of the 
lovely child I snatch away and waft its parting sigh 
into a new-born babe in other lands, Avhere beauty 
never withers, where age is never known, where sorrow 
never reigns and where Truth flourishes in immortal 
green. 

" Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? 
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast flying cloud, 
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, 
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave. 

" The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, 
Be scattered around and together be laid ; 
And the young and the old and the low and the high 
Shall molder to dust and together shall lie. 

"Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain. 
We mingle together in sunshine and rain ; 
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge 
Still follow each other, Hke surge upon surge. 



An Auiobiography. 19 

' Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis tlie draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death; 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, — 
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ? " 



CHAPTER IV. 

A PEEP AT THE PAST. 

Truth. Well we miglit rest and think here. 
The slanting beams of evening light up the desert 
sands, the Nile is rushing along as of old, the Pyramids 
throw their shadows over dilapidated memorials, the 
Sphynx is as voiceless as the tomb, and the croaking 
owl and screeching bat are the only living things heard 
from the broken temple of Karnak or the moldering 
ruins of Thebes. 

Hypocrisy. I remember well my old friend Rames- 
ses and Philadelphus, who would not take my diplo- 
matic advice when president of their senate house; 
and yet while I urged them with the oily tongue to 
avoid war and conquest, I gave secret aid to the plot- 
ting enemy, and finally brought about the decay and 
ruin that deception and betrayal engenders. These 
rulers of the ancient world looked in my face and eye 
to be flattered by my seeming sincerity; yet had they 
looked through the breast into my heart they might 
have seen the devil of duplicity sitting enthroned on its 
topmost pulsations. 

Envy. Yes, my dear brother, had Zenobia, Sem- 
iramis and Cleopatra not rebuked and scorned me by 
the beauty and talent they displayed at banquets given 

20 



A Peep cd ihe Past 21 

to cunning courtiers, their grand cities miglit be to-day 
the glory of the earth, instead of broken mounds of 
moldering rubbish, where noxious reptiles, sneaking 
jackals and hungry lions crawl and prowl when the 
lengthening shadows of night cover the remains of 
oriental grandeur, and when the pale moon with her 
cordon of circline: stars irradiates the sorrowful sites of 
vanished power and glittering glory. I could not bear 
the painted jades of royalty, and see them bear away 
the fresh laurels that should have encircled my brow. 
And so with a look of envy, a gangrened heart and a 
stiletto tongue, I, too, urged the foreign invader to 
neek and capture the wealth and power I could not 
command. Now, I appeal to Truth to say if I did not 
serve them right. 

Truth. No ; the wiles and subterfuges of Hypoc- 
risy and the gnawing meanness of Envy can never 
wholly obliterate the glory of the beautiful, good and 
grand ; and even the failings of the heroic and great are 
far better than the pretended virtues of your assassin 
tongues. 

The glory of Cleopatra can not be easily forgotten. 
Her love for Anthony is as immortal as the soul of 
humanity, and shall abide adown the changing tides of 
time, as long as faith, hope and charity actuate the 
hearts of men. The suicide for pure passionate love, 
of Anthony and Cleopatra, find few parallels in the 
history of this sordid, cowardly world. When she 
knew that life had fled from the heart of her royal lover, 
she uttered the following wail of passionate woe and 



22 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

then pressed the worm of the Nile to her heaving 
bosom and joined her hero amid the shining stars: 

I am dying, Anthony, dying. 
Yet I long for one embrace 
To entwine my arms around you, 
And still greet you face to face; 
Ere I cross the stygian river 
Testing highest heaven or hell, 
I am pining for thy presence — 
Come, and kiss a fond farewell. 

I am dying, Anthony, dying. 
While the conquering hosts of Rome 
Batter down my palace portals 
And despoil my royal home; 
Let great Ccesar's dashing legions 
Rule the land and rule the sea, 
I defy his sharpest torture — 
You and Love rule only me. 

I am dying, Anthony, dying, 
Yet, my soul-lit love forbids 
To quench great furnace fires 
Burning 'neath the p)'ramids 
Of passion's deep foundation, 
Laid by nature and her laws, 
That abide by blood and impulse 
From some great eternal cause. 

I am dying, Anthony, dying, 
Yet, the " splendors of my smile" 
Shall light thy pathway onward 
To some grand celestial Nile, 
Where among bright heavenly bowers 
We shall clasp with magic might, 
Crowned with everlasting flowers 
Blooming always, day and night. 



A Peep at the Past. 23 

Come, my lion-hearted hero 
To the jungles of my heart, 
Feed upon the upland hillocks, 
Never more to pine or part; 
Wander grandly to the valley 
Where the springs of life abound. 
Cool the ardor of thy passion 
In dark grottoes under ground. 

Envy. Yes, but her beauty, power, passion and 
poetry did not save lier from the grasp of the universal 
master. Fate, who rides over the rolling ages and de- 
stroys all creeping creatures, as the rude blasts of the 
hurricane lays in the dust the proud moiiarchs of the 
forest or the fairest flowers of the teeming fields. 

HYrocRiSY. Well, my sweet sister, since we are 
formed in the general mold of our elder brother. 
Truth, we can smile or sneer at his wisdom, and al- 
though not as rugged, plain and outspoken as he is, Ave 
often gain by dissimulation the victories he loses by 
bluntness. 

Truth. Your victories are as temporary and fleet- 
ing as the shadows that glide away from these broken 
columns and ruined temples Avhere once the priests of 
Isis and Osiris chanted their praises to the rising sun. 
Come, my callous companions, let us descend into the 
caves, corners and streets of this buried city ; wander 
through catacombs of blasted hopes and view the eva- 
nescent glory of man. Trim your lamps, husband your 
oil, do not doubt, follow my footsteps and fear not. 



CHAPTEE V. 

NAZER, THE CITY OF SORROW. 

Truth. A million years to-day, I left the city that 
now sleeps before us. Step carefully along these 
winding, crumbling marble stairs. AVe are now under 
the dead city of Thebes — down, down, five miles away, 
around granite hills, land locked lakes; pulseless and 
still, along deep chasms and over wide draw bridges, 
barely clinging to their parent abutments. 

Look, there in the shining distance rises the tall, 
white walls of the great city of Nazer. It was an hun- 
dred miles long and fifty miles wide. Its temples, 
towers and palaces, reached up to touch the morning 
sunlight or rest their heads in the region of the mid- 
night stars — a thousand to ten thousand feet above the 
surrounding plains — and its marble streets ran away, 
at right angles, to4he horizon, in a width of five hun- 
dred feet. Let us enter. 

And so saying, Truth touched a protruding stone 
in the great wall, and immediately a ponderous marble 
gate craunched around on its rusty hinges, sounding 
like the roar of echoing thunder, or the far off wail of 
some troubled ocean, lashing its angry sides against 
rocky headlands. Behold, said Truth, feast your eyes 
on the result of hypocrisy and ingratitude. This was 

24 



Nazcr, ihe CHij of Sorrow. 26 

the empire city of the magnificent Nazer, his beautiful 
queen Euinya and his only daughter Foolya. 

The Emperor had brought many nations under his 
subjection, and the wealth of the globe contributed to 
his vaulting ambition. Adjoining his great white 
palace, lifting its towering domes and glittering mina- 
rets beyond the changing clouds that blew in beauty 
over this enchanted land stood the royal harem. It 
was located in the center of a variegated garden of five 
thousand acres, where the river Rillril, meandered in 
pellucid freshness and beauty. Banks of flowers from 
tropical climes, aromatic trees, trailing vines, velvet 
grass and walks of golden gravel embellished this 
earthly paradise. The building was of transparent 
marble, nine stories high, dedicated to the muses, who 
in the realm of imagination, often gossiped with the 
transcendent beauties that graced this haunt of love 
and mellifluous dalliance. 

There were five thousand rooms in the establish- 
ment, which was appropriated to the use of the nine 
hundred and ninty-nine sweet maidens, selected from 
the most beautiful women of all the world, for the de- 
lectation of the great Nazer. Blabnoblab, was the 
chief eunuch, and was charged with the selection and 
supply of this young and tender food for his royal mas- 
ter. The first entrance of the novice to this abode of 
luxury and pleasure, was purely voluntary on the 
part of those who accepted the terms of admission. 

It was well understood throughout Nazer' s vast 
dominions, containing a billion of people, that when 



'20 Nazcr: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

any of the daughters of his realm arrived at the age of 
fourteen, that very day, she might offer herself as one 
of the consenting concubines, at the front door of the 
seraglio. If she was accepted because of her beauty, 
intelligence and energy, she was required to sign a 
short contract, from her own blood, pledging herself 
that for the term of twenty one years, if life was spared, 
she would be true, pure and faithful to the will of 
Nazer, receiving therefor every luxury that wealth and 
poAver could bestow, but on the very day she arrived 
at the age of thirty-five, she solemnly pledged her love 
and honor to enter the vast chloroform and embalmincf 
hall of the harem, inhale the joys of death and retire 
forever to her numbered sarcophagus, lined with purple 
velvet and swan's down, satisfied with life and blessing 
the hour that brought her to such a delicious dedica- 
tion of divinity! 

If the devotee accepted these unalterable terms, she 
was furnished with a small ruby sunburst jewel, set in 
blue diamonds, with her special number indented in 
topaz, and was then ushered into the grand onyx re- 
ception hall by Blabnoblab, and introduced to the bre- 
vet wife of Nazer, who was universally considered to be 
the most beautiful and fascinating woman in the world. 

This wonderful star of the harem, Lenona, was, at 
the time of which we speak, nineteen years old. Her 
height was five feet nine; eyes, blue as a June sky 
when sun beams tip-toe on the mountain top; teeth, 
white as the foam on a summer sea; nose, fingers and 
toes, slender and shapely ; lips, pink as Mediterranean 



Nazer, the City of Sorrow. 27 

coral ; limbs and bust round, harmonious and full and lier 
great wealth of golden hair showered away from her 
bright, arched brow, like a fountain gracefully flowing 
over an alabaster vase, when the declining rays of even- 
ing sink to slumber in some sea surrounding sapphire 
isles. 

Phidias would have gazed entranced upon her 
stately, matchless form. Raphael might kneel before 
the fascinating lineaments of her face and improve on 
his masterpiece, the Madonna, and Beethoven would 
have been blissfulized by selecting her as the subject 
of a new symphony. She ruled the seraglio with a 
golden rod of love, and when the small complaints of 
her sisters rang in her ears, she laughed them into 
silence and repose by her example of affection and 
equanimity. 

In the southern angle of the great white harem, 
there was located a mammoth pool or swimming bath, 
where pure spring water of variable temperature ran, 
with gurgling music the whole year round. The walls 
of the long bath, sides and bottom, were of variegated 
onyx, bejeweled with crystal stars and interspersed with 
looking-glasses, while the ceiling was a concave of re- 
flecting glass, showing in magnified form, the objects 
disporting below. Its depth ranged from three to 
thirty feet, where the timid walker or desperate diver 
would be sure to find pleasure suited to their respec- 
tive tastes. Swinging trapeze, slanting slides and 
spring boards of polished mohogany Avere erected at 
suitable spots for the bliss of the bounding bathers. 



28 Nazry: a Ziij-zaji Fltilusophij. 

Birds of the rarest plumage, greatest variety, and 
sweetest songs, variable as murmuring winds blowing 
over broken fields and hills, were encaged in silver 
cribs and sent forth a flood of delicious melody in re- 
sponse to the light laughter and sweet strains of these 
oriental nymphs ; all conjoined with a golden band of 
five hundred instruments. 

At eleven o'clock each morning, an hour before 
breakfast, Lenona Jed her regiment of naked swans in- 
to the hot air chamber, lingered ten minutes on velvet 
divans, proceeded thence to the tepid water pool, where 
an eunuch, of ebony hue, manipulated the matchless 
maiden with scented soap, after which the grand bevy, 
in sections, platoons and companies plunged into the 
pellucid waters of the harem lake, and gave themselves 
up to the clasp of the refreshing springs that fed this 
liquid home of love. 

The constant and variable actions of the bathers, 
was enough to set the beholder in a whirl of dizzy 
amazement. Some swung on the horizontal bars, 
leaped from the spring boards, shot in long lines down 
the sweeping skids, while others in lock-legged loveli- 
ness swam about the pool, in undulating swells, like 
water-lilies Avaving in some summer stream. 

The promenade gallery around the upper story of 
the grand bath, screened by purple silk curtains, was 
devoted to the use of specially invited guests, who had 
performed in war or peace, some great service to the 
state. And, lucky was the man that could have the 



Nazer, ilie CHy of Sorrow. 29 

privilege of feasting his famished eyes, even for five 
minutes, on the forbidden fruit, so near and yet so 
far. 

To violate the privilege of witnessing this scene, 
was instant death by strangulation in the perfume 
vault. Yet it was related on very good authority, no less 
than Blabnoblab, that thirteen old senators of Nazer's 
realm willingly forfeited their lives for the delectable 
bliss of anticipation and participation. Eve was abroad 
and in view, and why. Oh! vi'-hy, should not some in- 
nocent Adam be beguiled and persuaded by her volup- 
tuous form and soliciting eyes? Truth and Nature, 
after all, are the surest guides to happiness, and al- 
though the old senators deserved the fate they courted, 
by violating the sacred privileges of hospitality, I am 
convinced that even at the present day, such conduct in 
many lands and climes, quietly flourishes and prevails, 
exempt however from the strangulation edict of great 
Nazer. 

Envy, You discourse with volcanic words about 
these painted harem beauties, who live a dreary life of 
gilded idleness, and are only used by tyrant men as 
slippers to their passion and power. I wish I were a 
man that I might lord it over these silly fools. Their 
liquid lines of beauty flow, perhaps, from some wise 
creator, but I Avould rather be plain as I am, and not 
entice or entrance the eye and heart of the sterner sex, 
than be a make shift and convenience for his pleasure. 
What kind of a man was Nazer and his great lords ? 

Truth. Nazer weighed three hundred pounds, 



30 Nazer: ii ZUj-zcig Philosophy. 

measured five feet nine, upwards and about half this 
distance across. His face was round and fat and the 
blobs about his grayish blue eyes, indicated midnight 
and morning hours of unloosed revelry over the wine 
cup with his women and political chums. He was ar- 
rogant, mulish and heartless, only working for his sel- 
fish pleasure and power. Those who bent in humil- 
ity and went through the regulation genuflections to 
his pride, pelf and pretenses, were given the best offices 
around the palace or through the realm, and those who 
betrayed any signs of " kicking " against the tyrant, 
were relegated to the shades of private life, or strang- 
led, with quickness and kindness, as it were, in the 
perfume vault, where the hot fumes of sure death waft- 
ed them over the river Styx. He professed all virtues 
and reforms on the surface and practiced all the vices 
and iniquities in secret ; and while bearing the appear- 
ance of soft, facial, saint-like dignity, his cruel heart 
was continually hatching schemes and plots that would 
have delighted and edified the most cunning and artis- 
tic devil. He would often promise, with great solem- 
nity to aid and advance some of his royal courtiers, for the 
soul-lit satisfaction of betraying, and it seemed to cause 
his most genuine happiness, when he heard of the fail- 
ure or death of those who were considered even his 
friends. None hneiD him but to hate him, none named 
him but to damn. He was a devotee of duplicity and 
debauchery, a maxim of meanness, and a synonym of 
vice and insincerity. 

The Congress of Nazer was composed of thirty- 



Nazer, ihe City of Sorrow. 31 

three Senators, and a hundi-ed and tliirty-tliree Repre- 
sentatives. These great (?) men were elected by the 
people every three years — not because the Emperor 
really needed them in his national business ; but to 
flatter his loyal subjects with the belief, or hallucina- 
tion that they were " running the machine,"when, in fact 
they were the blunt tools, used in shaping the rough 
ashlers put into the palace of his power. They were 
but the simple instruments of registering his will and 
edicts, driven to the shambles of his conventions and 
Congress, like a drove of dumb cattle to the slaughter 
house. 

Occasionally the vice-president, speaker, and chair- 
man of the ways and means, and appropriation commit- 
tees would hesitate or even attempt to rebel, at the de- 
mands of the tyrant in passing a large and outrageous 
budget ; but instead of strangling or cutting off 
heads, he invited them to a grand banquet and gave 
them the open privileges of his seraglio which never 
failed to mollify the wise legislators. Nazer had ab- 
solute power to veto any part, or the whole, of any bill 
passed by his Congress, yet he seldom exercised the 
power, knoAving that if he really wanted any ready 
cash, he had only to dissolve the legislative body, order 
his secretary of war to send his army into some neigh- 
boring country, kill the inhabitants, and rob them of 
their money in the usual royal way! 

And if this did not work quickly and to his satisfac- 
tion, he sent his grand high steward of the palace 
across the street to the secretary of the treasury, and 



32 Nazer: a Zig-zfKj Phiiosophjj. 

ordered him to sell a billion of bonds and forward to 
the palace at once, tlie proceeds or forfeit his office and 
head in an hour. This edict of the Emperor never 
failed to replenish the coffers of the royal household- 
But whenever Nazer resorted to these peculiar and 
rather rough means, he had the good taste and gener- 
osity to order a general holiday for the people, who 
drank and eat at his (?) expense. To the members 
of Congress and Supreme Court, he gave a bang-up 
banquet, including all the harem beauties, led in grand 
array by Lenona and followed by Blabnoblab, wield- 
ing the golden rod of virtue, of course. 
********** 



CHAPTER VI. 

TIGRANNAS; INGRATITUDE REBUKED. 

Truth. The great power and wealth of Nazer was 
principally secured by General Tigrannas, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the realm. He was the greatest 
general who ever lived. Ctesar, Hannibal, Napoleon, 
AVashington and Grant, might have been capacitated 
for corporals in his atmosphere, bnt nothing more. 
With a thousand men he often defeated ten thousand 
of the enemy. His eye flashed like the sun over moun- 
tain tops, or like lightning from a noon-day sky, and 
the celerity of his movements was more sudden and 
desperate than a Texas "blizzard." 

Hypocrisy. I fear you are too fulsome in your 
praise, and that one man of human mould could not 
do so much to out-strip the other heroes of the past 
and present or those that may come to murder their 
species in the never-ending round of future wars. And 
yet as you pride in truth, even when it is ranged 
against you, I am generous enough to believe that 
everything on this earth was made for some great and 
glorious purpose, and that nothing is really bad, but 
everything is a comparative good. 

Truth, Tigrannas was of the same age as the 
Emperor, who Avas not born to the purple, but arose 

3 33 



34 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

like a flasli from tlie lowly life of a shepherd boy to 
almost universal power. It was never known who were 
the parents of Nazer. David and Jonathan were 
never more closely cemented in friendship than they. 
All that Tigrannas asked for the trials he endured and 
tlie victories he gained, was the hand of Foolya when 
she was eighteen years of age. This was readily and 
cordially promised by the Emperor when his fate lay 
trembling in the balance at the battle of the Cataracts. 
The wild hordes of Tartary and Persia were driving 
into the roaring Nile the retreating millions of Nazer 
when Tigrannas unfurled a silken sunburst, blood red, 
rushed to the front with the royal guard, slaughtered 
the invaders by the thousand, and over their bleach- 
ing bones set the triumphant standard of his friend and 
master. 

A million captives were led in triumph in the train 
of Nazer, and as he entered his capital city, containing 
a billion of people the shouts of the multitude might 
be heard on the distant mountains, sounding along the 
surface of those inland seas like the raging simoon of 
the desert, when winds are at war with the material 
elements of nature. Tigrannas, felt sure, that now he 
could see the fulfillment of his long cherished hopes, 
and only awaited the happy day when the nuptials of 
Foolya and himself would be celebrated with all the 
pomp, power and poetry that love and riches could 
command. Of course the General was thirty years 
older than Foolya, but age and youth do not seem 
to have much to do with matrimony when parental 



Tiyrannas; Ingraiiiiidc Rebuked. 35 

ambition intervenes. Yet the best laid plans of man 
vanish into thin air when Fate steps in with his iron 
Avill. Foolya, and her mother Ruinya had picked out 
a nice, young, fresh prince of the celestial house of 
Chinchin, who was heir to the throne of the great king 
of the moon, a realm far beyond desert sands, where 
the tea bush and the silk worm flourish in perennial 
bloom. They communicated their conclusions to the 
Emperor, who frowned at the first suggestion, but 
when shown that Tigrannas could serve the state no 
longer and that the young Prince, with the long queue 
would bring millions of money and men to his aid, he 
turned his face away from the daring General who 
had achieved all his victories. Nazer issued at once a 
"jaw jaw" to his vast domain saying that "tomorrow 
at noon my beautiful beloved daughter Foolya will be 
eighteen years old, and by my royal desire, consent and 
will, she shall marry the illustrious Prince Whang- 
chang, heir apparent to the great king of the moon. 
My city shall be adorned and decorated with all the 
gay banners, rich trappings and gorgeous gildings 
that wealth can procure, and a grand feast of thirty 
days is hereby proclaimed to all my people. 

Signed, Nazer, 
Lord of the earth." 
The Adjutant General of Tigrannas called his at- 
tention to this remarkable and ungrateful proclama- 
tion, as they drove in their chariot to the palace. 
At first Tigrannas thought it a joke of some familiar 
wag or the thrust of some envious hypocrite, but when 



36 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

he rushed as usual into the office of the Emperor, he 
was stopped by a royal guard with a double-edged 
sword, who demanded his business, and informed the 
commanding general that his royal master would not 
see any one without they first sent in their cards, and 
await their turn in the grand audience room. 

This grand blufp, unnerved the great General of the 
realm, as it was only the day before he had lunched 
with his royal master, and tli3 secretary of the treas- 
ury at the Crystal Club House, situated on the lake 
on the top of Mount Morema. 

Tigraunas was finally admitted to the presence of 
the Emperor, who demanded his business in a tart and 
quick voice. The General was not a little abashed, 
reminded the royal autocrat of his past service to the 
State, and the promise given to him for the hand of 
Foolya. "Sir," said the Emperor, "you seem to for- 
get that my daughter is a Princess of the realm, and 
must marry some one who is her equal and not a 
plebeian, who rose from the common people." 

" Your royal highness forgets that it was this plebe- 
ian Avho took you from the ranks of the Shepherds, and 
by his valor at the battle of the Cataracts brought 
victory to your standard and established your empire 
on a solid foundation." 

"Dare not Tigrannas, talk to me in such language, 
else I shall make thee feel the iron hell of my wrath. 
Be gone sir! to-morrow I shall issue an order for 
your perpetual exile to the snows of Siberia where the 



Tigrannas; Ingratitude Rebuked. 37 

howl of wolves shall in time chant a requiem over 
your bleaching bones." 

" Your majesty, I bid you a last farewell on earth, 
but to-morrow when the nuptials of your daughter are at 
the meridian of their splendor my spirit shall hover 
near and my curse for your ingratitude shall fall upon 
your empire." "With this parting shot he dashed out 
of the palace, flew past the Adjutant General, ran to 
the tower of silence, overlooking the bottomless lake, 
made one leap ijito its dark bosom and sank, to rise no 
more. 

Consternation took possession of the people at the 
deplorable loss of their cherished general, and a cloud 
of sorrow seemed to settle down on their hearts. Yet 
sorrow is generally short lived, and the dark clouds 
that lower in the evening storm are dispersed and ban- 
ished by the sunlight of morning. 

The grand day, set for the nuptials of Foolya .and 
AVhangchang arrived, and was ushered in by a flood of 
golden sunlight, as if Nature was doing her best to put 
on her brightest smiles for the royal wedding. The 
gardens of Nazer, resplendent with variegated roses, 
blushed in beauty to the delightful day, and the very 
atmosphere was laden with the sweetest perfumes, ex- 
haled from mammoth banks of flowers that adorned 
the capitol. Electric artillery guns roared forth their 
greeting from the impregnable forts that guarded the 
heights of the city ; a thousand golden bands paraded 
the streets, discoursing the sweetest music ; carrier 
pigeons flew through the air adorned with white satin 



38 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

streamers emblematic of the purity of the Princess ; 
an army of a million men marched in every direction, 
with the sun-bui'st flag waving over their purple and 
golden uniforms, and prancing snow white steeds, 
neighed forth a welcome to the scene as if they knew 
the people of the empire were doing homage to their 
young mistress. 

HyrocRiSY. — I should have given a million of money 
to have been there myself and felt the proud swell of 
my heart at the happiness of others. After all, life is 
only worth what the heart and soul have capacity to 
give away, and those who give most and best in this 
narrow vale of joy and woe get most, not only here, 
but registers a coupon bond in the treasury of Jehovah, 
where the banker never breaks and the cashier never 
defaults or absconds. As the poet says : 

All that he holds in his cold, dead hand is what he has given away. 

Truth . — Ah, my dear brother, I pray that every 
mortal may be imbued with your benevolence and 
soaring soul; but yours is lip service and it is too 
much to ask, and never will be granted until God blots 
out envy and hate, jealousy and hypocrisy, and trans- 
forms the misers and selfish sinners of this earth into 
His own likeness of purity and principle. 

But to proceed with my story of the nuptials. See, 
yonder shining palace, on that central hill, a mile 
square, lifting its fluted columns two hundred feet 
high and its white dome a thousand feet into the 
heavens — was the scene of the grandest display the 



Tigrannas; Ingratitude Rebuked. 39 

world of tlie ancients ever witnessed. Purple banners, 
with royal storks embroidered in white silk floated 
from every pinnacle and tower, and a hundred thous- 
and red balloons were let loose in the air to magnify 
the enchantment. 

The grand audience hall, two thousand feet long, 
one thousand feet wide, and two hundred feet high, 
with a white marble throne at the head of it, fifty feet 
high, was packed with the nobility of the realm. 
Grand old dames, with billows of puffed white hair, 
and lovely willowy ladies, all smiles, and wearing gos- 
samer, cob-web veils lined the hall, and pretty pages 
held their flowing garments. Jewels of the rarest 
kind, and in greatest profusion bedecked these Oriental 
beauties. The men were dressed in scarlet breeches, 
blue jackets, powdered wigs, and wore short swords 
and silver slippers with diamond decorations. 

At exactly ten minutes of twelve o'clock, high noon, 
one long, melodious blast from the royal trumpet 
ushered in the bridal train, Foolya leaning on the 
arm of her father, Avliile Whangchang escorted his 
prospective mother-in-law. The great audience sepa- 
rated to the right and left of the hall as if by magic, 
while a band of a thousand instruments filled the pal- 
ace corridors with soft, harmonious sounds. 

The Emperor and Queen took seats in purple plush 
velvet chairs under a canopy of fretted gold work, 
studded with a shower of sparkling diamonds, while 
the royal attendants knelt on the loAver steps, and the 
bride and groom stood on a raised dais fronting the 



40 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

Grand High Priest of the realm. The bride was clad 
in a long train dress of purple velvet, encrusted with 
a peck of the dearest diamonds. She wore a veil of 
bleached cobwebs, so thin that it floated on the scented 
air of the palace like a white cloud in a heaven of uni- 
versal blue. 

The groom was clad in a suit of imitation tea leaves 
of finest silk, with celestial butterfly ornaments. His 
number one, high-heeled boots were of malleable gold, 
bearing diamond shoe buckles in the shape of new 
moons. 

When the royal clock in the great royal tower 
began to strike twelve, the High Priest instructed 
the young prince to place the marriage ring 
on the left hand thumb of the Princess and repeat: 
" With this ring I thee wed," when, horror of 
horrors, a broad flash of lightning rent the dome of the 
palace in twain, and a ghostly arm with a long, flash- 
ing sword, waved three times, and a voice of thunder 
came out of the circumambient air exclaiming: " Pet- 
rified for Ingratitud"*: !" And from that ancient day 
to this you behold the palace, city and realm, and every 
living thing of the ungrateful Nazer, frozen and petri- 
fied as they once stood in life, a terrible but just judg- 
ment for the unpardonable sin of damnable ingratitude. 

" Nazer; Down to Ibe dust, and as thou rott'st away, 
Even woriiis shall perish ou thy poisonous clay," — Byron. 



CHAPTER VII. 

A VISIT TO PEOPLE OF THE PAST, 

Truth. Come, Envy and Hypocrisy, let us visit 
some of the groups of human wrecks that lie prone on 
these desolate and barren shoals of time. Hear me 
discourse, but speak not, for should your voice be heard 
by the spirit that reigns over these ruins, the whole 
dead city we now behold, with its ghostly columns, 
groups and petrified people would vanish away in an 
instant and overwhelm you in an ocean of dense dust. 
At the end of this grand avenue that lies before us 
lived my old gnarled and dilapidated friend Wisdom? 
a poet and a philosopher. He was the poorest man in 
the city, and the richest; poor in the corroding goods 
of this Avorld, but rich in those divine attributes that 
can evolve happiness from a crust of bread and a cup 
of water, or even pluck cresses from the gurgling 
brook and imagine that he partakes of a vernal banquet- 
Hark ! how the echo of our faint footfalls reverber- 
ate along these crowded streets, filled with millions of 
pilloried men, hitched by the hand of Fate to the same 
spot where life left them. How their eyeballs stare ; 
and the horse and the rider seem to be tripping away 
to the brazen music that once filled the air with shout- 
ing joy and meandering melody. Be careful, £«nd for 

41 



42 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

your life do not touch a mortal ; yet light as a bird on 
the wing, let us traverse the winding ways of this great 
city and gain knowledge from these vain and ungrate- 
ful people who promised themselves immortality. 

This is the modest garden where Wisdom once 
taught the young of the land lessons of temperance and 
victorious virtue. He had pupils from every clime, 
and the small and the great, and the good and the bad 
came for his advice and craved the privilege of drink- 
ing at the exhaustless fount of his philosophy. Look, 
there he sits under a giant palm, with a broad high, 
rugged brow and flowing snowy beard, surrounded by a 
throng of listening scholars, with eager ears to catch 
the wise words of the old sage as he explains to a class, 
in physiology, the particular parts of a bleached skele- 
ton that hangs on wires before the school. Hear him : 

TO A SKELETON. 
Young Men: 

1. " Behold this ruin! 'Twas a skull, 

Once of ethereal spirit full. 

This narrow cell was life's retreat ; 

This space was thought's mysterious seat. 

What beauteous visions filled this spot! 

What dreams of pleasure long forgot 

Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear 

Has left one trace of record here. 

2. Beneath this moldering canopy 
Once shone the bright and busy eye; 
But start not at the dismal void — 
If social love that eye employed, 

If with no lawless fire it gleamed. 

But through the dews of kindness beamed; 



A Visit to People of the Past. 43 

That eye shall be forever bright 
When stars and suns are sunk in night. 

3. Within this hollow cavern hung 

The ready, swift and tuneful tongue ; 

If Falsehood's honey it disdained, 

And when it could not praise was chained; 

If bold in Virtue's cause it spoke. 

Yet gentle concord never broke, 

This silent tongue shall plead for thee 

When Time unveils eternity. 

4. Say ? did these fingers delve the mine, 
Or with the envied rubies shine — 
To hew the rock or wear a gem 

Can little now avail to them ; 
But if the page of Truth they sought 
Or comfort to the mourner brought — 
These hands a richer mead shall claim 
Than all that wait on wealth and fame. 

5. Avails it, whether bare or shod 

Those feet the path of duty trod ; 
If from the bowers of ease they fled 
fo seek affliction's humble shed; 
If grandeur's guilty bribe they spurned. 
And home to virtue's cot returned — 
These feet with angel wings shall vie 
And tread the palace of the sky! 

Let us turn for a moment to the royal restaurant, 
where Bacchus and the muses held sway for the 
amusement of the ancient revelers. Behold the vari- 
ous groups seated around red tables, with glasses raised 
for a toast, as life departed like a flash of lightning. 

On the stage at the end of this grand theater you 
see the prima-donna and a thousand ballet dancers 



44 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

in all manner of attitudes, singing to the stars, or tip- 
toeing to the sky. The musicians too, with bows and 
arms bent, horns lifted in air, drum sticks crossed, 
blowing bugles, and the magic baton of the leader di- 
recting all, present a sight of the vanity of the 
proud and great, that should incline the living to view 
the rapid evanescence of pleasure and prepare for the 
inevitable transition beyond the gloom of the grave. 

Come to the sick chamber and behold the dying 
girl. There is the mother, father, sisters, brothers 
and friends gathered about the couch, while the doctor 
feels her pulse and the nurse administers medicine 
with a spoon. The curtains were drawn low, and the 
only sounds heard was the labored breathing of the 
departing girl and the click of the old water clock 
in the hall. Those in good health had faces draped in 
sorrow, and the mournful phase of the scene as all were 
struck dumb and dead, harrows the heart with fear and 
amazement. 

Let us enter the prison that overhangs the bottom- 
less lake where the heroic Tigrannas found surcease 
from sorrow. Here is the crooked, dark passage where 
state criminals entered on a life of hard work or star- 
vation, or passed farther on to the execution block of 
bogwood to expiate the so called crime of rebellion. 

Thousands of my best brothers, through all the 
wearing centuries, have suffered for my sake at the 
cowardly and cruel hands of tyrants. But the race of 
rebels still lives, while the dastard dynasties of royal 
robbers are crumbling away before the grand march of 



A Visit to People of the Past. 45 

mind and manliood. Remember always that truth in the 
minority is a thousand fold stronger than error with 
its howling majority. The sun, moon and stars illu- 
mine the pathway of Truth, while the selfish and un- 
righteous grope in the dark defiles of Stygian night, 
sooner or later tumbling into the black, unfathomable 
waters of forgetfulness. 

The rebels of past, present and future centuries 
ever have, and ever will be, the real guardians of my 
principles. Rebel! the sweetest word that ever fell 
from the lips of Truth. Christ was a rebel against 
wrong and comes to us down the ages in a blaze of 
celestial glory. His golden rule of doing to others 
what you would have them do unto you has never 
found lodgment in the cruel hearts of tyrants. His 
lesson of peace on earth and good will to men has 
never been practiced by the princes and potentates 
who pretended to rule by divine right. 

Martin Luther was a rebel against the dense ignor- 
ance and bigotry of his day, and the tyrannical edicts 
of pampered princes. He struck from the limbs of 
Liberty the shackles of servitude, and placed on the 
pedestal of freedom the great statue of individual con- 
science and personal responsibility. No worship of 
our Maker by proxy, but, from the plowman in the 
field to the prince in the palace, every one has the 
inalienable right to kneel for himself, read for him- 
self, pray for himself, look up into the heavens and 
die for himself and his God. 



46 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

No man needs a "middle man" between himself 
and his maker! 

Pope Pius, the Ninth was a rebel against infidelity, 
intemperance and injustice. His benevolent face and 
good deeds shone from the Vatican like rays of a cen- 
tral sun, and although many doubted his creed and 
infallibility, the world acknowledged his charity and 
sincerity. A hundred millions of devoted followers 
turn their eyes and hearts to the towering dome of 
St. Peter's to-day, and from the sacred ashes of Pope 
Pius the Ninth, the phoenix of a celestial consolation 
arises out of the gloom of infidelity, spreads its broad 
wings over the universe and soars away into the illim- 
itable regions of heavenly hope and eternal rest. 

Wiukelried was a rebel when he threw his body on 
the Austrian spears and made a way for the liberty of 
his country. His name and fame will last as long as 
the Alps, eternal monuments to his glory, and frowning 
barriers to the tyrants that pursued him, but could 
not conquer his princij^les even in death. 

Look to the German revolution of 1848. We be- 
hold a central figure, a grand rebel, the son of a jour- 
neyman cooper, leading by his pen and voice the pat- 
riots of the Fatherland. His poetic heart and eloquent 
lips never faltered in the service of liberty. Though 
chilled by neglect and poverty and pursued by the 
minions of power, he never deviated from his desire 
to make Germany a republic, and place her among the 
nations of the earth that vote and govern themselves 



A Visit io People of ihe Pasi. 47 

by the ballot instead of the bayonets of dukes, kings, 
emperors and czars. 

But, at hist the great heart of this rebel was pierced 
by the bullet of the tyrant one bright morning as the 
sun rose over the temples and towers of Vienna, when 
the soul of Kobert Blum went up to his God through 
the music of the mass and the murdering sound of 
Austrian rifles. The grave of this patriot shall yet be 
marked in monumental glory, the sweetest floweis of 
spring shall grow around his tomb, the birds of Ger- 
mania shall sing a requiem to his memory and the 
tears of humanity shall bedew the sod that wraps his 
sacred clay. 

The thundering eloquence of Demosthenes, Cicero, 
Mirabeau, Gambetta, Sheridan, Patrick Henry and 
Wendell Phillips, rebelled against the crimes of 
tyranny, and although their lips are closed by the 
portals of the tomb, their words for truth and liberty 
go sounding down the ages inspiring the souls of all 
who rebel against wrong and oppression. 

Washington was a colossal rebel, and made his re- 
bellion a magnificent success. He cut the main ten- 
tacles fi'om the British octopus and stopped the^ valves 
of this huge blood sucker. He taught the tyrant good 
behavior at the point of the bayonet, the only argu- 
ment royal robbers understand or respect. 

Lincoln was a rebel against the slavery of a race 
and the disruption of a republic ; and Stonewall Jack- 
son was a rebel against what he imagined the vandal- 
ism of power. One died by the insane hand of an as- 



48 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

sassin, and left a name behind that will live as long as 
human hearts pulsate with love of liberty. Rooted in 
the rifted rocks of time shall be his temple of everlast- 
ing glory. The mountains of Columbia, lifting their 
heads into the boundless blue, and the murmuring 
rivers of the American continent, shall mingle forever 
with his fame, but the noblest monument to his mem- 
ory are the four million shackles struck from the gall- 
ing limbs of the bondsman. The example of the im- 
mortal Lincoln shall continue to bless the world, until 
crowned with the diadem of Liberty, we shall acknowl- 
edge the image of God in all men and pluck from the 
the calendar of our hearts the demon of caste and per- 
secution. 

St. Paul, on Mars' Hill, smashing the idols of 
paganism, among the classic corridors and towering 
colums of the Acropolis ; Humboldt, delving into the 
earth or climbing snow-capped mountains; Newton, 
with his falling apple, and Franklin catching a ray of 
heavenly light from the eye of Jehovah, were, one and 
all, first-rate rebels, in the interest of Truth, Virtue, 
Science and Liberty. 

Rebel ! to thee I kneel and lift my hands and voice 
in thy praise. A grand bronze statue for all the ages^ 
standing in the center of Liberty's temple, worshiped 
by the good and great and reviled by the robber and 
the tyrant. Stand out forever in thy splendid manhood, 
like some grand mountain crag, lifting its lofty head 
into the heavens, and overtopping the roaring ocean at 
its base. No oracle at the temple of Memnon could 



A Visit io People of ihe Past. 49 

equal thy sweet voice aud matchless form. No sun 
ever shone on brow so noble, eyes so bright, lips so 
true, hands so willing, feet so fast and form so fair. 
Circling centuries have witnessed thy struggles, de- 
feats and triumphs for Liberty ; yet to-day, in every 
land, you still rear that giant crest, fight on and remain 
uuconquered ! 

Excuse this short digression of mine, in wandering 
over all the centuries to illustrate my philosophy, but 
as you know, I am in all places at all times, ubiquitous 
and eternal, flashing my eye and spreading my 
thoughts over everything. We will now proceed on 
our journey and see more of the petrified prison. 

Here is the ponderous gate half swung open on its 
rusty hinges, and the keeper with his iron key as he 
escorts a trembling, famished lot of prisoners to their 
stony cells. Let us enter. Look, the great water 
wheel that once turned the machinery, rises a hundred 
feet into the heavens and sinks into the dark pit below 
a hundred more. Men in black garbs are seen every- 
where. At the anvil, loom, bench, rough ashler, clog 
shop, quarry, rock pile, kitchen, and feed bench, and 
women in sewing and wash rooms, remain as motion- 
less now as when the curse of Tigrannas petrified 
Nazer and his dominion. Keeper and convict, male 
and female, innocent and guilty, in innumerable atti- 
tudes, stare with wide open eyes, in the last look of 
life, at the affrighted beholder. 

Let us pass out and into the dark temple of death. 
There ! look at the executioner with ax uplifted to sever 
4 



50 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

the head from the broad shoulders of a daring rebel 
bound to the black block. High in air, the instrument 
of death is lifted by the tyrant's agent, when he is 
struck by the lightning bolt of Fate and the official 
murderer and his devoted victim pass into nothingness 
together. 

All human things are subject to decay, 

And when Fate summons, monarchs must obey. 

Dryden. 

The great city wall is now in view, the western gate 
is near at hand, where we shall again leave behind 
forever the rich remains of arrogance and bloated 
power. And thus saying. Truth touched a spring in 
the wall, when a large marble slab fell away and he 
bade Envy and Hypocrisy to follow. But at that 
very moment Envy looked behind, like the celebrated 
Mrs. Lot, and yearned for the flesh pots, jewels and 
wealth that were strewn in every direction. 

"Oh! that I could carry these riches away." The 
expression was no sooner out of her mouth than the 
great walls of the city with its temples and towers and 
animals and people, fell down with a universal thunder 
crash and enveloped Envy and Hypocrisy in death, 
verifying my prediction. * * * 

Truth barely escaped the desolation that lay before 
his eyes, and as the clouds of dead dust rose into the 
sky and vanished away like the morning mist, he stood 
erect and alone on a high hill gazing upon the ruin 



A VisU to People of the Past. 51 

that Envy and Hypocrisy and false ambition always 
bring about. He then plumed his piiiions and rose 
into the evening sunlight, soaring away to the west 
in search of his best friends, Love and Generosity. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

ROME AND ITS POWER. 

Generosity. Let us rest awhile on the shores of 
the Adriatic, wander over Alpine heights and gaze 
upon the moldering memorials that man erected for 
self- laudation on the turbid waters of the Tiber. 

Despair, I am tired of wandering in search of 
fleeting pleasure that presents a momentary view of 
realization and then departs like a flash of morning 
sunshine over a string of pearls. 

Wit. Perhaps you would like to have a wreath of 
daisies. 

Despair. Oh ! talk not to me of the daisies of this 
earth, frail and fleeting as a shadow. 

Wit. Brace up and enjoy fun and life while you 
can. Brood not over buried treasures and let each 
day's life be its heaven, looking always for the flowers 
and evading the thorns that lie beneath. 

Generosity. Spare my feelings from bandying 
words that have small meaning and only prove that 
each of you wish to drown the inmost thoughts of the 
heart under a cloak of gilded phrases. Let us rest 
here near the Coliseum for to-night ; and find if any of 
our old friends can spread a bounteous board, cheer 
our weary hearts and tired wings with some of the nec- 
tar that once glorified the gods. 

53 



Rome and Its Power. 53 

I will play the prodigal, iu talk and act, as usual; 
and while Wit is wearing and Despair depressing, my 
unsuspecting nature must gladden the earth and be the 
butt of all gradgrinds and misers through the whirl of 
coming years. I was born when the moon was in its 
full, while Venus shone upon my nativity and Saturn 
reigned at the very moment of my birth. My lucky 
and unlucky stars seemed to be bright and cloudy in 
turn, to-day shining with great force and to-morrow 
obscured by the storms of misfortune. 

In youth, my brothers and sisters said I was a fool 
because I never turned a deaf ear or an empty hand to 
the voice and tears of the distressed, giving with a 
lavish love and very often leaving myself poorer than 
the person that craved my bounty. When sickness, 
sorrow or death came to my poor and humble neigh- 
bors I would steal out in the evening shadows, enter 
the back way, hand the woman of the modest cottage a 
basket of delicacies for her sick husband or a score of 
florins to assist in burying her dead baby, and then de- 
part as noiselessly and unobtrusively as I came. When 
fevers, fires, floods, plagues and earthquakes desolated 
the earth, and the scourge of famine waved its wand 
over the people, I was the first on the list to swell sub- 
scriptions for the relief of suffering mortals. When 
the war of the enemy invaded and desolated my country, 
I was among the first to enlist in its defense, and where 
the shot and shell of battle rained fastest and heaviest, 
I was found wounded and bleeding in the midst of the 
terrible human slaughter, where the cupidity and ambi- 



54 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

tion of man ensanguines the beautiful fields and flowers 
that God has fashioned for his fantastic foot-stool. 

I know that there is a deep chasm between Justice 
and Generosity ; and while I, perhaps, have often 
stripped myself to relieve the alleged wants of a rogue, 
I would, at last, rather be fooled a hundred times in 
giving, while I can, than refusing the soliciting hand 
of one honest man. 

There is only an even, rational act in paying your 
honest debts, that deserves no particular mention or 
credit, but the slop-over, off-hand, unusual impulse of 
Generosity elicits our encomiums, even when we may 
condemn the indiscretion of the giver. 

At home and abroad I am sought after by the weary, 
sad and snubbed, who wander as outcasts from the 
haunts, halls and offices of successful Shylocks, that 
seem to live only for the bare pound of flesh cut from 
the breasts of their unfortunate fellow men. The 
haughty inmates of palaces, the royal riders in gilded 
cliariots, and the bloated judges who preside, with a 
" little brief authority," over the misfortunes and mis- 
takes of mankind, fill my soul with a nameless disgust, 
and cause me often to doubt the existence of a God, 
who allows the rich and great to "lord" it over their 
neighbors, like the Ruler of the Juggernaut of oriental 
lands. 

At daily dinners and midnight banquets I have 
spent thousands of dollars, entertaining sunshine 
friends, who departed at the first rub in my fortune ; 
but who had the brassy audacity to return, like flies 



Rome (ind lis Power. 55 

around molasses, and feed off me wlien the fickle dame 
once more shed her financial smiles. 

Yet, I blame not these little creatures, parasites on 
the back of Generosity, pint measure mortals, Avho 
never can conceive the wide and deep stream of leauty 
and love that flows from the never failing fountain of 
benevolence and Godlike affection. 

While I have never had the same love and lavish- 
ness extended to me that I have imparted to others, I 
am entirely satisfied with my " failings," and can only 
wish that the entire world, in some far off age, may be 
imbued with and practice my open hearted and broad 
handed philosophy, I have always found it easier to 
laugh and sing with the world than to weep and sigh, 
and much pleasanter to feast than to fast. 

Laugh, and the world laughs with you, 

Weep, and you weep alone; 
This grand old earth must borrow its mirth. 

It has troubles enough of its own; 
Sing, and the hills will answer. 

Sigh, it is lost on the air, 
The echoes bound to a joyful sound 

But shrink from voicing care. 

Be glad and your friends are many 

Be sad and you lose them all. 
There are none to decline your nectared wine 

But alone you must drink life's gall; 
There is room in the halls of pleasure 

For a long and a lordly train, 
But one by one we must all file on 

Through the narrow aisles of pain. 



56 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

Feast, and your halls are crowded, 

Fast, and the world goes by, 
Succeed and give, 'twill help you live 

But no one can help you die ; 
Rejoice, and men will seek you. 

Grieve, and they turn and go 
They want full measure of all your pleasure 

But they do not want your woe ! 

Wit. "What you say may be true, yet fine words 
butter no parsnips, and an empty stomach like mine, 
cannot feed long on poetry. Many of the greatest 
poets of all the ages died of neglect and starvation 
and their wayward, wandering Bacchanalian lives, 
tended to produce some of the finest thoughts in the 
libraries of the world. The people who sit down in 
their comfortable parlors and palaces seldom think of 
the trials and tribulations endured by Zoroaster, 
Anacreon, Horace, Dante, Tasso, Lamartine, Shakes- 
peare, Byron, Burns, Goldsmith and Edgar Allen Poe, 
who were one and all devotees of the wine cup, the 
generator of poetic and oratorical thoughts. Let us 
hie to some of these Roman palaces and refresh the 
inner humanity. 

Despair. Yes I'm tired and nearly starved and 
will surely die of exhaustion and fear, unless I partake 
of some of that real nectar of the gods not always 
found in poetry. 

Generosity. It is now midnight, when my friend, 
the great Caesar, dines with the Senators, their wives 
and daughters ; and I have no doubt he will be glad to 
entertain at least two of us at his festive board. 



JRome and Us Poiver. 57 

So saying they alighted from the floating clouds of 
thought to the earth, wound their tortuous way down 
the huge steps of the Coliseum, across the arena where 
the Gladiator and the lion once battled for the amuse- 
ment of Koman dames, shouting citizens and triumphal 
Avarriors, How grand and beautiful at all times are 
the ruins of the Coliseum. 

" But when the rising moon begins to climb 
Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there; 
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, 
And the low night breeze waves along the air," 

then go and view this magnificent wreck of man's ambi- 
tion. On they went, around rearing, crumbling col- 
umns, stony streets, broken bridges, Hadrian's mole, 
and the temple of Janus, to the marble palace of 
Caesar, lit from turret to foundation with dazzling 
lights, shining on the Capitolian hill like an Alpine 
[)innacle of snow illuminated by the first rays of the 
morning sun. 

When Geneeosity mounted the steps of the lofty 
marble palace, he looked the personification of his 
name and the very emblem of heroic benevolence. He 
stood in leopard sandals, seven feet high, with red silk 
stockings to his knee, short blue satin breeches to his 
waist, a puffed white velvet jacket with open red 
sleeves and collar, crowned with a blue peaked hat, 
decorated by a long white ostrich feather, showing 
brown curly hair over a broad brow and gray eye that 
proclaimed him the very picture of prodigal manhood. 

AViT, stood next, five feet five, wearing a variegated 



58 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

suit of green, long pointed shoes and the usual cap 
and bells, appended to those who make fun for flowering 
fortune. 

Despair came last. She was a little hump-backed, 
and it was difficult to measure her mien. Her face 
had a jaundiced hue, eye downcast and milky, and her 
periodical sigh and cough would remind you of a 
cross between a dyspeptic and small-pox patient. 
She no doubt bore up as well as she could, yet every 
effort only added to the inward pangs of imagined grief 
that dragged her lower into the depths of despondency. 
Her grievances were invariably told (strictly confiden- 
tially of course) to her friends, and her only pleasure 
consisted in being miserable ! She would not be in your 
company over two minutes without recounting the sick- 
ness of her family and the number of accidents and deaths 
that occurred in her neighborhood during the past 
year. She never opened her mouth but to complain 
and find fault and sadden the hearts around her, and all 
stood trembling when they beheld her approaching 
footsteps. Clouds, storms, sorrow and death accom- 
panied her trailing skirts, and I have no doubt but the 
world would be delighted to get rid of the gangrened 
jade, even by the unholy mode of assassination. 

Generosity had now reached the large lion-headed 
golden knocker, when he gave three distinct raps on the 
door which was immediately opened by a tall Egyptian 
from the upper Nile, who announced the advent of the 
new comers to a line of succeeding attendants who roared 
the names through the grand entrance hall, through 



Rome and Us Poircr. 59 

the reception parlor, and on to the throne audience 
chamber till the vaulted roof rang with the universal 
names of Generosity, Wit and Despair. At the men- 
tion of these world renowned persons, Augustus arose 
from his royal chair and saluted the immense throng, 
gave his left arm to Generosity and led the way to the 
illuminated banquet hall, where two thousand guests 
sat down amid a forest of flowers while their hearts 
were filled with soft strains of melodious music. Ca3- 
sar sat at the head of the table while his Queen sat at 
the foot. Generosity sat on the right of the Emperor, 
Wit sat on the left of the Queen, while Despair was 
placed in the middle next to the Secretary of the 
Treasury, where she could pour into his ear peculiar 
words of warning against the issue of silver certificates 
and cartwheel coin, that only loaded the vaults of the 
realm, and lightened the pockets of the people, all for 
the benefit of a few bankers, bondholders and retired 
capitalists. 

The Secretary of the Interior sat opposite the Treas- 
ury man, surrounded by a lot of land sharks cind 
Indians that had just arrived from the Indus for their 
annuities, and also to complain of old Porus, who was 
cutting down all the timber along the banks and sell- 
ing lumber to a lot of ship builders who expected to in- 
vade Rome in the spring 

The Secretary of the Navy sat on the right of the 
Queen, and acted as mad, seemingly, as a March hare, 
because his last iron-clad man-of-war struck a pine 
stump at the mouth of the Tiber, and sunk the two 



60 Nazer. a Zig zctp Philosophy. 

millions expended on the imperial craft, which went 
into the hands of cormorant contractors for the imag- 
ined benefit of the royal party, but in fact was put 
away in the deep pockets of those who ran the political 
machine. 

This was what is usually denominated " shameless 
robbery,'' by the press and people; but those who 
were on the " inside "" and enjoyed some of the 
"chicken pie," regarded the building and sinking of 
the man-of-war as legitimate business. The Secretary 
of the Navy knew that as long as he could hold the ap- 
propriation committees of the realm up to the fear of a 
foreign invasion, he would have no trouble in securing 
all the money he wanted to build ships — on paper, and 
thus keep himself and Augustus in power as long as 
the ladies of the household wished to shine at the 
capital. He was like his master, a great Reformer, and 
with only ten per cent, of principle, he actually made the 
rabble herd of Rome believe that he had at least ninety 
per cent., and many of the fools lauded his pretences 
to par. What rot? 

The civil service reform of the empire was the 
great " hobby " of Augustus and his cabinet, and con- 
sisted in fact, in reforming their parasite friends from 
ordinary citizens, into extraordinary office holders. 
The smallest official places of the realm were sought 
out for their begging followers, and those who had hon- 
estly and intelligently served the Caesars of the past for 
many years, were pronounced unfit for even the place of 
messenger, clerk or commissioner. Yet, what will not 



Rome and lis Poiver. 61 

Reform do ; when we have learned for centuries, that, like 
patriotism, it is " the last refuge of a scoundrel." 

" No'sow-gelder did blow his horn, 
To geld a cat, but cry reform. 
The oyster women locked their fish up, 
And trudged away to cry, No Bishop! " 

The Secretary of War sat on the left of the Emperor, 
bearing a lot of dispatches from Spain, Germany and 
Britain, showing that the Roman eagle had been clip- 
ped of many of his fine feathers, and was stripped 
almost as bare as the parrot that tackled the historic 
monkey. The old man only knew what war was from 
liearsay; yet he made up in ancestral pride, dignity 
and pretence, what he lacked in force and information. 
He had around him a lot of military snobs, whose re- 
cord for red tape, and soft places might vie with that 
of those carpet knights of old, who capered nimbly in 
a lady's chamber "to the lascivious pleasingsof a lute." 

The Minister of Justice, clad in the robes of his 
royal office, sat on the left of Despair, eyeing her with 
a far off, anxious, fitful gaze. His case, and office was 
never so bad that Hope entirely deserted him ; and al- 
though he held the scales of justice with a seeming 
equilibrium, I noticed they always tipped on the side 
where the most gold and poAver prevailed. Fraud and 
purple in wealth, found in him a willing ear and ready 
signature; while truth in rags was spurned with con- 
tempt by this slab sided, time serving sycophant. He 
had the faculty of putting on a sanctified look of 



62 Nazer: a Zirj-zag Philosophy. 

bland, devoted justice when he was prepared to play 
the devil of duplicity and pelf. 

The Secretary of State sat at the back of the Em- 
peror to Avhisper in his ear all needed words of warn- 
ing, hypocrisy, and duplicated diplomacy. He could 
look any one in the face with a plastic smile, say 
"yes" when he meant "no," and say "no" when 
he meant " yes." He belonged to an old family who 
were related to the Plinys of Rome, and had managed 
by his native hypocrisy and v^ealth to keep in power 
through every administration, although his ability 
scarcely approached mediocrity. Yet, wha,t will not 
time, precedent and family influence do for even an 
old "Peter Funk." "Some are born great, some 
achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 
them." This last was the case with our honored Sec- 
retary, who never failed to hold some kind of an ofiice, 
and I must say managed to keep the world at large 
from knowing how little he really knew. 

His entanglements with foreign lands were few and 
far between, because in this golden, Augustinian age 
of peace, he consented to be insulted, kicked and hum- 
iliated by even the most insignificant states, rather 
than have any of the " feather bed soldiers " around 
the Roman realm disturbed from their sleep of security, 
or battered in their beauty. It is no trouble to pre- 
serve peace with foreign nations, when you have a 
" peace at any price " Secretary, and one who will 
allow your flag to be hauled down and trampled upon 
with impunity. Nice man? * * * 



Rome and Its Power. 63 

One blast from the trumpet of the royal bugler 
brought the crown bearer to the side of the Emperor 
who relinquished his diadem, a well known signal for 
all the guests present to lay to and feast on the rich 
viands that were placed before them. 

Such a bill of fare was never seen before or since. 
In the center of the table there was placed, rampant, 
two roasted bulls that had been fed on the finest fodder 
for three years; and the dripping spices from their lus- 
cious sides, flowed into mammoth chafing dishes, fill- 
ing the banquet hall with an aroma beyond compare. 

Farther on, toward the foot of the table, were roasted 
roebucks, fried fawns, broiled boars, and boiled salmon, 
from the head waters of the Danube, Kennebec and 
Columbia, while near the head of the royal board, five 
thousand nightingales and ten thousand snipe, were 
perched on toast, waiting devouration. Twenty thou- 
sand humming bird tongues were imported from South 
America, cooked and passed about by Numidian waiters 
to encourage the musical buzz of the assembled nabobs. 

The fruits were brought from Sicily and Persia, and 
the world was put under tribute for vegetables and 
wine. Valernian came from the ranch of Maecenas, 
nectarine from the broad womb of Pliny's acres, 
Clicquot from the rugged hills of the Ehine and the 
Gaul of Peters, Mumm, from Manhattan, a brevet Irish 
village beyond the sea; Piper Sec, from Philadelphia, 
a pensive town, where people travel along a white rut 
of door steps, because their dead relations did the same, 
aud the old brand of Perrier Jouet spouted about the 



64 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

table as if Jeff Davis and the Savannah artillery had 
nothing else to do but advertise the "Old Guard," who 
fought and fell at Waterloo, in the special interest of 
Napoleon, Major McLean and Captain Saunders! 

The knives and forks — Rogers' best, were of the 
purest silver; the plates and dishes were of the finest 
work, and the cups and saucers were chased out of 
the brightest variegated onyx, emerald, lapis-lazuli, tur- 
quoise and topaz, while the Emperor and his consort 
drank out of diamond cups, rimmed by pigeon blood 
rubies. 

This remarkable table service was manufactured, on 
general principles, by a gentleman named Tiffanui, 
who kept at one time a pawn shop on the west end of 
the Rialto, but who through the patronage of Caesar, 
became the grand jewel purveyor of the realm. 

The revelers, after a splendid feast of three hours 
were in fine shape for the intellectual banquet ; for it 
is a well known fact, that the more wine a man takes at 
a banquet, the better he is fitted to make a fool of 
himself, and flatter the vanity of the orators, who seem- 
ingly grow great, in tlieir own estimation, in accord- 
ance with the volume of noise, and so called cheers 
they elicit by a burst of eloquence. 

Augustus Caesar arose in majestic mein, grasped 
the golden rod of power, rapped the floor three times, 
and addressed the guests as follows : 

Romans and patriots! (Hear, hear, hear !) to- 
night my heart is filled with unalloyed joy at the sight 
of so many of my royal subjects, whose bright and in- 



Rome and Us Power. 65 

.telligeut faces give promise of eternal fealty and 
loyalty. The Roman eagle spreads its broad wings 
over the world, turns its gray, lightning eye to the sun, 
and screams a bold defiance to all mankind. (Pro- 
longed applause.) The Germans and Britons are 
giving us a little trouble on the borders of our empire 
at the present time ; but relying, not on my own poor 
wisdom (?) but on the stout hearts and strong arms of 
my invincible subjects, we shall soon take the field, 
and exterminate these vile men from the face of the 
earth, who dare for a moment defy our universal 
power. ( Hi, hi, hi ! ) I now appoint my friend Gener- 
osity, master of ceremonies for the night, and com- 
mand all my subjects to obey him according to the 
ancient and honorable precepts of our great and 
glorious order of " Golden Imperiability. " 

Generosity. Ladies and Gentlemen, Language 
is totally inadequate to portray the inexpressible feel- 
ings of my sighing soul for the high and mighty honor 
his majesty has conferred upon me by designating one 
so humble to preside as master of ceremonies on this 
auspicious and magnificent occasion. (Loud and 

sonorous applause. ) 

The first toast on the printed programme (fresh 
from the government office) is The day we celebrate 
in memory of Romulus and " Uncle Remus," I have 
the honor to present to your gaae and ear the member 
from ancient times — Colonel William Silome, a no- 
toriously funny man. 

Silome. Fellow citizens, I well remember my old 
5 



06 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

friends " Rom," and " Eem," who assisted me in digging 
the first dry cellar of this Eternal City. The lads were a 
little quarrelsome, and one of them had a decided 
wolfish look. These brothers had a small unpleas- 
antness about the capacity of the first wall of the city 
to keep out the Sabine woman from making a raid on 
the peace and virtue of the people. A skirmish en- 
sued, and one of the boys went out and over the walls 
to stay. I can say now, without fear of contradiction, 
that I am the oldest inhabitant on the stage of action, 
having raised the risibles of the people for the past 
two thousand years. And yet Marktwine, O'Hill- 
tree and Jerome presume to contest with me when the 
foam is on the wine and the bloom is on the rye. I 
have kept tally (at Sheeps-head Bay and Delmonico's) 
of the rise and fall of men and empires, and I must say 
that I never knew a man Avho put pulverized sugar in 
his " Bourbon" that could be trusted to deal a square 
hand in the dark. A man may lie to his washerwoman, 
sell out a political caucus to the other party, stuff a 
ballot box, fail to ante in the historic jack-pot, tell liis 
waiting wife that he has been at the lodge, and it all 
goes ; but when he neglects to take his liquor straight, 
I am his natural enemy. And now, boys, here's to 
" the day we celebrate," and also to the ladies, God 
bless them, last at the cradle and first at the grave! 
(Great cheering.) 

Generosity. The next toast is, Mystic mem- 
ories. We are fortunate in having with us to- 



Rome and Its Power. 67 

night the Grand Oriental, High, Ahnighty, Gehosa- 
phat, crown-bearer of Omnipotence, and half brother 
to the sun, and first cousin to the moon. I call on 
General Workemall to respond. 

General Workemall. My worthy and exalted broth- 
ers and sisters, Although I hail from a land watered by 
the Tigris and Euphrates, and shadowed by the broken 
remains of Babylonian temples, I can say with my hand 
on my heart that never until to night have I experienced 
ecstatic joy. Some three thousand years ago, under 
the hanging gardens of Ninevah, I established lodge 
No, 1, with thirteen kings as charter members. 
We increased rapidly, until a broker named Belzebub, 
who kept shop on the main square of the city, clan- 
destinely induced the treasurer of our order to invest 
in wheat and river and harbor improvement stock, 
when lo! and behold! he lost all the Oriental Lodge 
cash on hand, and we were turned out into the cold 
world, where we have been wandering in the woods 
ever since. 

In caves, deep valleys and mountain heights we 
held our conclaves; and although the growl of the 
bear, the yelp of the wolf and roar of the lion often 
frightened us, they were not so mean and uncharitable 
as man, who pursues his brother with more chilling 
vengeance than the Avildest, wintry blast. 

Generosity. The next toast is "The late soldier." 
We have a gentleman among us whose reputation 
for gallantry is as broad as the globe, and whose elo- 
(juence almost equals that of my friend Cicero, sitting on 



68 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

my right. I call upon the illustrious General Blowhardt, 
an old and familiar acquaintance at every banquet, 
where food and fluid are dispensed. 

Blowhaedt. Fellow soldiers and citizens, AVhen 
the tocsin of war reverberated over the valleys and 
mountains of the Capitolian hills and Pyrenees, and 
startled the ploughman in his field, the merchant at his 
counter, the lawyer at his desk and the minister in his 
pulpit, I left my shoe shop in Milan, buckled on my 
knapsack, and cartridge box, with ioviy rounds, and 
flew to the field of slaughter to save my country, for 
the modest sum of thirteen dollars a month. After the 
battle of Pharsalia I was lifted fi-om the ranks for gal- 
lantry in leading the men to the rear without the loss 
of a single soldier and promoted to the rank of colonel ! 
I led the battalions of Alexander through Macedonia 
and Persia, and when the conqueror of the world drank 
six quarts of wine at one draught at his great feast at 
Babylon, I assisted in carrying him to the royal tent, 
feet foremost, where this great and grand man expired, 
the devotee of Mars and Bacchus. Then when Miltiades 
gave his blizzard blow to Xerxes at Marathon and 
Salamis, I inflicted some of my Ku-Klux medicine 
upon the Persian carpet-baggers. 

At Waterloo I became General by the discrimina- 
ting power of Napoleon, who left me on the field to 
command the Old Guard, while he beat a hasty retreat 
for the lights of Paris, and gave up forever the ghost of 
glory that had so long impelled him to slaughter mil- 
lions of men for personal ambition. Even after the fight 



Rome and lis Power. 69 

Wellington sent a special aid, for me to repair to liis 
tent ; and before liis whole staff and liis victorious army 
said: 

General Blowhardt: Although I have conquered 
your master and yourself, and decimated, as it were, 
the pride of the Old Guard, I must say in justice to 
you as a noble and heroic enemy, that I never, even in 
my wars in Spain, met a man who displayed so much 
courage and endurance as you have to-day ; and were it 
not that Fate has accidentally made me master of the 
situation, I should under other and more favorable 
circumstances have been delighted to award you the 
crown of glory and surrender my sword to you instead 
of demanding yours, as I do now, even amid a flood of 
tears! (Astounding applause from the banquet revel- 
ers.) Gentlemen, I can tell you in all candor that 
at the close of this great speech of the Iron Duke, 
there was not a dry eye in that whole army. Even 
Blucher, the Prussian salamander, wept like a child 
and fell off his horse! 

You may remember also the occasion Avhen I plung- 
ed into the Rubicon, almost up to my neck, and when 
C?esar waved his sword and uttered to me that grand 
message " Few', vidi, vici,^'' which I laid before the 
Senate with my own voice, and had it printed in the 
Congressional Globe, and transcribed on vellum, which 
can be seen to this day pasted on the brow of Jove as 
he stands in majesty in the war department. 

By this heroic act T was made General of the whole 
Army ; and as is well known, without any solicitation 



70 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

of my political friends, for you know that I am a diffi- 
dent, modest man, and any promotion that comes 
through intrinsic merit must be thrust upon me. 
( Cheers. ) 

During the recent Avar, I knew quite a number of 
late soldiers when bullets were flying, but these pam- 
pered patriots were never too late to ride in an ambu- 
lance, answer the surgeon's call, draw rations, retire to 
the hospital for catarrh or " rheumatiz," and then get an 
" honorable discharge " for their record as "hospital 
soldiers," by which in after years they might easily 
secure a plethoric pension for having performed heroic 
duty as genuine soldiers in hospital! 

One of the other late soldiers was, Old Capital, 
who sent a substitute to the war and had him wounded 
or killed for cash. This fellow was scattered all over 
the country, and often he could be found in Canada, 
at some nice watering place, waiting patiently until the 
tyrant Secretary of War filled the quota of the draft. 

Then Old Capital, who was generally a politician, 
would sneak back to his old stamping ground, put up 
town caucuses, issue the usual call for him to run for 
congress, (all without his knowledge of course,) and 
finally consent, at a great sacrifice, to become " your 
honored candidate." 

The circulation of campaign documents ("green- 
backs") never failed to secure his election, and then 
when he sat in the halls of legislation, virtue, integrity 
and peace found their most ardent advocate, and the 



Home and Its Power. 71 

whole country rang with the glory of Honorable Hi- 
ram Hockinliock. 

This same patriot is about to-day, and the same 
deeds of keen and quiet hypocrisy that he played on 
the " old soldiers," in the long ago, he is repeating with 
renewed success, and will until the crack of doom. 

But my friends, of all the great and good heroes 
connected with the war, the man most noticeable for 
bravery, courage and cash was, 

THE ARMY SUTLER. 

I sing the song of the sutler, who fought in the battle of life; 

The song of the prize package artist, who never got into the strife; 

Not the jubilant song of the soldier, who never forgot to lay claim 

To the "greenbacks" that stuck in the "jack-pot," at the end of a 

winter night game. 
But the song of the beautiful sutler who traveled in sunshine and rain — 
For the sake of the Almighty Dollar and whatever else hecouldgain; 
And his youth bore no flower on its branches, for his age was a bright 

sunny day, 
For the prize that he gloriously grasped at was the cash that he carried 

away. 
And the work that he did for the army in the rear of the soldiers was 

seen. 
Where he set up his crackers and herrings, and the smell of the festive 

sardine — 
That he sold to the " boys" on a credit or the clamp of a paymaster's 

lease, 
And six boxes he gave for five dollars, while the rest brought a dollar 

apiece. 
While the world at large sheds a tear to the hero who may be bereft, 
I drink to the grand Army Sutler who never was known to get left! 
Who rushed to the front when the camp fires lit up all the hills, without 

fear; 
But at the first crack of the rifle he galloped away to the rear 
With his pipes, his tobacco and whisky and his barrels sf sour lager beer, 



72 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

And he never let up on his running till the Long Bridge appeared to his 

viev/, 
Where he opened up a shop in his wagon, and roped in the gay " boys in 

blue;" 
How he held to his faith unseduced, with the glint of the cash in his eye^ 
And for this great cause how he suffered; for the cash not the country he'd 

die! 
Then rear to the sutler a temple of granite and brass that will stay, 
Where the spirit of Shylock shall hover and beam on the " blue " and 

the "gray,"' 
That once paid a tribute to genius with a gall that no mortal could rule 
And a smile like a lightning rod peddler, and a cheek like the grand 

Army Mule! 

Generosity. The next toast is, The Men, may 
they never grow old. I ask Mrs. Senator Leapatus to 
respond. 

Mrs. L. Your majesty, and gentlemen and ladies, 
I cannot do justice to men. They are often so far 
beyond my reach that I can't "catch on." It is not to 
be expected in this wild, weird world that men will 
ever receive their just deserts. Justice is too scarce 
an article to ever reach the sterner sex, while they 
hold the scales in their own hands. 

If women should go to the lodge, bask in the glare 
of the stupid sentimentality of rote-ritual of words^ 
that may sound nice to the ear, but really mean nothing ; 
sit at the gaming table or worse places, with eyes 
bleared and red, until daylight; soak wliisky and 
wine like a sponge, and return in the dawning, looking 
like boiled lobsters, men might understand what an 
innate disgust the " fair sex " entertain for them, and 
learn at last what fools men make of themselves, even 



Rome and Its Power. 73 

wliile tliey are prating of being the " lords of crea- 
tion." (Applause from the ladies, and sighs and 
groans from some of the old Senators.) 

I will admit that there are a few good men, such as 
my brother, father, and husband, who must of necessity- 
remain out late when the Senate is in session or the 
committee on appro^iriations are concluding how many 
millions the rivers and harbors of the realm will need? 
and particularly the amount that will be expended in 
their respective states. My liege lord is never addicted 
to even the vice of gambling, for it was only last night 
he returned from the Capitol restaurant, where he in- 
formed me, as a reason for his absence, that he and his 
committee had been entertaining a party of four kings 
from Asia and a pair of queens from Persia. When I 
see other men, compare their conduct with my curled 
darling, and hear of the escapades they indulge in, I 
bless the day that sent me Senator Leapatus, whose 
sincerity, sobriety and continence are only equaled by 
his virtue, wisdom and faith to his noble family. (Some 
of the old Senators were taken with a coughing spell, 
and many of them stuffed their napkins in their mouths 
to smother their laughter.) 

In girlhood, I had g^reat confidence in all men, but 
since my hair has been turned from black to white by 
the snows of fifty -five winters, I must say, in conclu- 
sion, that Senator Leapatus is the only milestone of 
manhood left of my former faith. 

" Since man to man is so unjust 
I scarcely know what man to trust; 



74 Nazer: a Zig-zag Plulosopliy. 

I've trusted many, to my so>ro7v; 

So pay to-day and I'll trust to-morrow ! " 

(Tremendous cheering.) 

Generosity. The next toast on the list is Wo- 
man, our delight in youth, our companion in manhood, 
and our comfort in old age. I call upon Senator Leap- 
atus, the wise patriarch, to respond. 

Senator L. Your majesty and fellow citizens, After 
the glowing eulogium (negative and positive) pro- 
nounced by the tender and beautiful Mrs. L. (Contin- 
ued coughing) I am at a loss to employ fitting terms 
to gild and glorify her sex. At the foot of this ban- 
quet board, however, sits our royal queen, the flower of 
her race and the radiant emblem of imperial virtue 
(aside — I wish I could say as much for others of her 
sex). 

From the earliest dav/n of time, long before spring 
ploughing began outside the garden of Eden, woman 
was a prime factor in the propagation of man. My 
mother was a woman, and Avere it not for her consider- 
ation and love I would not have the distinguished 
honor of addressing you to-night. 

The most endearing words are sweetheart, sister, 
daughter, wife, mother, and the keystone to this royal 
arch of purity and love is woman. The touch of her 
warm hand lulls the sleeping babe to sweet repose. 
The glance of her beaming eye thrills the soul of man- 
hood, and in the golden sunlight of old age, she clings 
with undying affection to the object of her love. Pure 
and patient at the cradle, faithful and endiiring at the 



Eomc and Us Power. 75 

cross, she will merit and receive the crown of immor- 
tal life beyond the sun and stars. 

In every land and clime the advancement of woman 
points to the pathway of civilization, and although she 
speaks in various tongues, her language of love is 
universal, and her influence in home, church and state 
mark the milestones of human progress. 

History is full of heroic women who led armies, 
died for the liberty of their country, suffered the tor- 
tures of battle, and the pangs of hospital experience. 
Cleopatra, the lovely Egyptian queen; the Maid of 
Orleans, whose white banner proclaimed victory; 
Charlotte Corday, the heroic peasant girl, who killed 
a heartless tyrant, and Florence Nightingale, the 
chanty angel of modern times, are all niched in his- 
toric grandeur, and ages yet unborn will sing the glory 
of their proud renown. 

But, while these, and other heroines of history, 
have left the impress of their genius upon the endur- 
ing tablets of the world, the quiet, loving, patient 
heroine of home, avIio toils for the child and man she 
loves, claims most of my respect and admiration. In 
the silent watches of the night, she stoops with a nerv- 
ous listening ear over the pale face of her dying boy, 
and through her sobbing tears and breaking heart 
she holds his image to the grave. The last sigh of 
the dying child echoes in the fond breast of the mother, 
and the last look of the fleeting soul, seen through the 
closing eyes of the departing mortal, is photographed 
forever on her face and heart. 



76 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

The bed of pain, the prison, the poorhouse, the gal- 
lows and the grave find her ministering hand, and she 
is always ready to throw the mantle of charity over 
any fallen mortal, and soothe the anguish of misfor- 
tune in the deepest valley of despair. 

Here's a toast then to woman, heart true and free, 

Who quaffs off a cup to memory and me, 

And wafts o'er the billow sighs of regret, 

For hours that have gone and suns chat nave set; 

Yet changeless as Fate, who loves to the close 

Her wandering hero through strife and repose — 

Fresh in her beauty as dew on the rose. 

When the sage Senator took his seat, amid a whirl- 
wind of cheers, and the marble rafters echoed his 
glory, Generosity arose and announced as the very last 
and most important toast. Money, and called on Moses 
Frankenstien of Jerusalem to respond. Moses had 
been the banker of the Emperor for many years and 
the right bower of the Secretary of the Treasury. He 
stood in his socks five feet five, supported a " summer 
head," with a long humped nose attached ; long chin, 
below a pair of narrow, thin lips, long, bony fingers, 
long legs and thick broad feet. He wore a pair of 
steel gray eyes, that peered through glasses, while his 
face and brow were deeply furroAved by the plough- 
share of time. He could have been taken anywhere, 
without introduction, as a lineal descendent of Abra- 
ham, Isaac and Jacob; and even in the dark, with 
no guide but his slow, sharp, economical voice, this 
relic of a by -gone age, would be known as of the race 



Borne and Us Power. 77 

of the Wandering Jew, and the butt of persecution 
for all lands. He spoke as follows : My royal queen 
and my good friends, From the earliest dawn of crea- 
tion, and the first wants of man, the generic Jew has 
been the pioneer of civilization, the moulder of empires 
and the financial fulcrum for the lever of the world to 
rest upon. 

"Wit. Three cheers and a tiger for the gentleman 
from Palestine ! 

Frankenstein. Although persecuted by the Per- 
sian, the Turk, the Spaniard, the Eussian, the Boman, 
the German, the Briton, and even by the American, he 
yet thrives, keeps shop, store and bank, and is ready 
to trade with anybody for cash. 

Yoii know full well, my good friends, that while my 
irrepressible race has been long scattered over the 
earth, and is in the minority in most lands, yet our 
cash is always in the majority, and we force people, 
princes and potentates, to beg at our banking houses 
for the means by which they exist in peace and tri- 
umph in war. Ferdinand and Isabella banished us 
from their domain for no other reason than to confis- 
cate our lands and rob us of our jewels and money — 
all in the name of religion, but in reality for pure and 
simple robbery, because they had the power to enforce 
their damnable edicts. 

A drunken gentile and playwright named William 
Shakespeare, labeled me as Shylock, a miser and thief, 
because I loaned a bankrupt merchant Antonio, three 
thousand ducats to keep him from prison for debt, 



78 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

and then, when I wanted my money as well as punish 
the spend-thrift imposter for abusing me personally, 
the whole tribe o£ black mailing lawyers, in conjunction 
with the court, made a "combine" to rob me of the 
cash I had saved by prudence and economy. 

Wit. What about your friend Pontius Pilate? 

Frankenstein. I hope he is in as hot a place as you 
deserve to be. Pilate was a Roman carpet-bagger, and 
played the same cowardly judge, in the case of Christ, 
as the Duke of Venice did in my own case. Both of 
them time servers and sycophants for cash. 

Shakespeare, of course, was a great and wonderful 
writer, none having lived before or since, not even Don- 
nelly or Bacon, who could hold a candle to his volcanic 
illuminated, divine genius. But, many of the morals 
that he teaches might be relegated to the haunts of the 
scarlet woman and the garbage pile of licentious putre- 
faction. The idea of a man like him abusing me and 
my race and setting us up through the ages to be des- 
pised, for what ? Nothing, but that I exacted absolute 
justice. 

Look at his record. A deer stealer, a poacher, a 
runaway, a truant horse holder, a supe at a theater, a 
town bummer, a midnight tavern roysterer, a noted 
roue, and the associate of such infamous characters as 
Dame Quickly, Falstaff, and the royal murderer, Henry 
the Eighth. A fine quartette of social assassins ! 
There is not one of his plays or poems that does not 
refer to, or make an excuse for, either duplicity, drunk- 
enness or illicit love, and while he, in many instances, 



Rome and Its Power. 79 

covers them up with the fine honeyed touches of a great 
word painter, it is there nevertheless, blotching and 
disfiguring the logic and splendid philosophy he en- 
deavored to instil into the human heart. 

Shakespeare has done more to injure the morals of 
mankind than all the men that ever wrote before or 
since his time; and while he held up the looking- 
glass of vice for our abhorrence and detestation, he 
knew full well that constant contact with temptation 
was the shortest route to its indulgence. 

" Vice is a monster of so frightful mein, 
To be hated needs but to be seen; 
When seen too oft, familiar with its face. 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

The divine bard pictures the rich, extravagant 
Timon of Athens, as a man-hater, driving him to death 
in a lonely forest by the sounding sea ; and blames the 
lordly guests who feasted at his generous banquets, for 
heartless ingratitude, when as a fact, the actual misfor- 
tunes of old Timon can be traced directly to his own 
vanity and presumption, and that lack of strict daily 
economy I have always studied and practiced. The 
care and prudence Shakespeare blames in me, he 
lauds in Laertes through the lips of Polonius in 
these words: 

Give thy thoughts no tongue: 

Nor any unproportioned thought his act. 

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. 

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 

Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; 



80 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment 

Of each new-hatched, unfledg'd comrade. Beware 

Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, 

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee. 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: 

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. 

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy. 

But not expressed in fancy: rich, not gaudy: 

For the apparel oft proclaims the man; 

And they in France, of the best rank and station, 

Are most select and generous, chief in that. 

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be: 

For loan oft loses itself and friend; 

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 

This above all, — To thine own self be true; 

And it must follow, as the night the day, 

Thou canst not then be false to any man. 

Such a medley of contradictions and such an individ- 
ual consistency and inconsistency as Shakespeare 
presents to the world cannot be found in any other 
volume. Even the various bibles of all the various 
human religions, the result of hope and imagination, 
do not show such glaring inconsistencies as those that 
emanate from this mysterious man. 

There are words, phrases and verses in the Merry 
AVives of Windsor, Bomeo and Juliet, Midsummer 
Night's Dream, the Rape of Lucrece, and Venus and 
Adonis, unfit for publication in a well regulated police 
gazette ; and only fit for the eye and ear of midnight 
club men, theatrical devotees or lascivious loungers who 
while away and kill the lingering hours of life by the 
temporary enjoyment of these passionate platitudes of 
philosophy. 



Rome mid lis Power. 81 

My good fi'ieiids, persecution always reacts upon 
the fool or tyrant that inaugurates it, and he who digs 
a pit for his brother generally falls into it himself. 
Some of the greatest and wisest men that have ever 
come into the world were Jews. Moses, Abraham, 
Solomon, David, Christ, Josephus, Jeremiah, Roths- 
child, Mendelssohn, Disraeli and Montefiore —men re- 
nowned for wisdom, splendor, charity, Avealth and 
statesmanship, were all Jews, and have left the imprint 
of their good works upon the pulsating tablets of 
human hearts,as indelible as the mountain peaks that 
lift their pure heads into the stars that nightly shine 
over Alpine ranges. Prejudice and persecution have 
ever followed the climbing footsteps of the great and 
good, and the meanness and hate of little souls are in- 
spired by seeing anyone successful. 

" He who ascends the mountain tops shall find 
The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow: 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 
Must look down on the hate of those below." 

Mr. Frankenstein sat down amid the wildest burst 
of applause, and the Emperor rose to close the ban- 
quet. The crown was placed upon his head; waving 
the golden rod he said: 

My loyal subjects, the advancing footsteps of the 
dawn shines lightly on the misty mountain tops, the 
arrows of brightness from the bow of Jehovah pierce 
my palace windows ; the feathered tribe in my gardens 
twitter their morning praises to the rising sun; the 
6 



82 Nazcr: a Zig-zag Philosophij. 

glow-worm pales his ineffectual fires before the god 
of clay; the plash of the fountains and the distant mur- 
mur of the Tiber, warn us that another day gives us 
health and life, 

Kise, my faithful subjects, and let us drain the 
bowl of Bacchus to vengeance and desolation to the 
Northern Vandals, who refuse to obey our royal will. 
Another day, and my legions shall be climbing the 
steeps of the Apennines, with sword and torch, de- 
vestating the fields and homes of the barbarian. 

A thunder of cheers greeted this pronunciamento, 
but just as the last echoes of the acclamation died 
away on the perfumed air, a roar came up from the 
palace garden, rung along the shining halls and corri- 
dors, chilling the souls of the revelers by the wild cry 
of "the Goths, the Goths; they have forced the city 
gates ; they fire the churches, temples and towers, and 
swarm about the palace precincts!" Generosity gave 
a nod and a wink to Wit and Despair, when they threw 
off their semblance of material humanity, plumed their 
wings, flew from the upper windows of the imperial 
capital, and did not cease soaring until they rested on 
a huge Alpine crag, miles away from Rome, where 
they paused for rest, to look back on a city in flames, 
and an emperor and people put to the sword and re- 
duced to ashes beneath the gorgeous buildings erected 
for pleasure and power. 

Luxury and avarice made these haughty Romans 
weak; the spoils of nations pampered their pride; 
power and licentiousness made them vain, and these 



Rome and lis Power. 83 

corroding qualities, combined with imperial and im- 
agined invincibility, finally invited the wild invaders 
and desperate hordes of hardy barbarians, who over- 
ran the "Eternal City," leaving it an emblem of deso- 
lation, where the bat, owl, cricket, viper and lizard 
reigned supreme, amid the tumble-down temples 
covered with vines, thistles and rag weeds, the only 
mementoes of natui'e to murmur a requiem over the 
remains of buried glory ! 

Rome, personified, might exclaim with Lord Byron, 

What is the worst of woes that wait on age ? 
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ? 
To view each loved one blotted from life's page, 
And be alone on earth as I am now. 



CHAPTER IX. 

ON THE WING TO VENICE, FLOEENCE AND PARIS. 

Generosity. Onward, our work is not yet finished, 
pleasure and pain run side by side, as "a double 
team," and no one ever knew genuine happiness that 
did not know change. We'll wing away and glance 
at the crumbling monuments of mankind, deplore the 
bloody sacrifices inaugurated for their amusement and 
ambition, cauterize their living infidelities and search 
through the world for our brother, Truth, and sAveet 
sister. Love. 

Look below; here is Venice and Florence in the 
glimmering distance. Venice was once the pride of 
the Adriatic, the grand mart of marine commerce, the 
royal seat of domineering doges, the site of splendid 
palaces and sculptured bridges spanning liquid roads, 
where purple barges and golden gondolas, with merry 
revelers, held high carnival to the music of the lute, 
violin, harp and mandolin, accompanied by enchanting 
voices under the sensuous spell of summer moonbeams. 

Her glory is departed, and her treasures are lost in 
the secret caves where merry mermaids and old Nep- 
tune reign supreme. Her palaces, bridges, walls and 
marble docks are cracked and crumbled by the tearing 
tooth of time, and the green slime and weeds of old 

84 



On the Wing io Venice, Florence and Paris. 85 

ocean creep around the foundations of her former 
grandeur. The pigmy princes and pitiful paupers that 
now inhabit these dilapidated homes, are but shivering, 
humiliated remnants of their glorious and industrious 
progenitors. 

The modern Italian is but a grief to the intelligent 
traveler, when compared with those of ancient days. 
As Goldsmith observes, 

Contrasted faults through all his manners reign, 
Though poor, luxurious ; though submissive, vain: 
Though grave, yet trifling ; zealous, yet untrue ; 
And even in penance planning sins anew. 

Look for a moment at Florence, the home of ideal 
religion and art. It nestles along the winding waters 
of the classic Arno, or shines with suburban homes, 
monasteries, churches and palaces, perched upon the 
green spurs of the rolling Apennines. Here Boccaccio 
and his beauties lived a life of intelligent love and 
pleasure, within hearing of the Avild wail that rose 
from the plague stricken city, as thousands of the 
fairest and best were left to rot in the streets, or be 
tumbled into improvised graves by hands that follow- 
ed in quick succession. 

Here Galileo, Petrarch, da Vinci, Angelo, Medici, 
Titian and Dante, wrought for the elevation of the 
human race, and sacrificed their noble lives for Nature 
and her grand ideas. The Duomos and Santa Croce, 
the principal cathedrals, built of variegated marble and 
lined inside with lapis-lazuli, jasper, onyx, and many 



86 Nazer: a Zig-zag PMlosoph'i). 

other precious stones, containing statues and paintings 
by immortal masters, whose bones now mokler beneath 
the artistic memorials they designed and produced. 

In life, these brilliant and glorious characters, were 
pursued and persecuted, by the ignorant and vulgar, 
because of the art and science they promulgated, and 
many of them were tortured or banished from their 
native land by tyrannical lords, dukes, princes and 
pojDCs, who could not conceive or appreciate the rich 
treasures that lay concealed in the blazing brain of 
genius. And yet when their poems, music, paintings, 
statues and temples were finished, and an admiring 
world knelt at the sacred shrine of originality, then 
millions of florins were collected and appropriated by 
little official harlequins to erect memorial busts, and 
statues, in marble and bronze, in celebration and deifi- 
cation of the very men they would have incinerated in 
life. Monuments in death, banishment and starvation 
in life. 

When I am Dead, let no vain pomp display 
A surface sorrow o'er my pulseless clay. 
But all the dear old friends I loved in life 
Can shed a tear, console my child and wife. 

When I am dead let strangers pass me by, 

Nor ask a reason for the how or why 

That brought my wandering life to praise or shame 

Or marked me for the fading flowers of fame. 

When I am dead the vile assassin tongue 
Will try and banish all the lies it flung, 
And make amends for all its cruel wrong 
In fulsome prose and eulogistic song. 



On ihe Wing in Venice, Florence and Paris. 87 

When I am dead, what matters to the crowd ? 
The world will rattle on as long and loud, 
And each one in the game of life will plod 
The field'to fortune and the way to God. 

When I am dead, some sage for self renown. 
May urn my ashes in some park or town, 
And give, when I am cold and lost and dead, 
A marble shaft where once I needed bread! 

We will now circle away over the bright blue 
waters of the Mediterranean, gaze on the peaceful 
peasants of Lombardy, cross the towering sky-piercing 
Alps, and quietly descend to this modest French cot- 
tage, situated on the sluggish waters of the Seine, in 
sight of Paris, where we will resume our human pere_ 
grinations. This is the grand domain of the Duke 
Montcalm, 

Wit. I'm glad you reach earth occasionally, for I 
have been tramping on clouds so long, that I feel like a 
wandering wild goose, squawking at the world, and 
chasing stars for countless centuries. 

Despaie. Yes, and I feel like a war hospital, where 
fever, open wounds, broken bones and crippled soldiers 
invite my congenial and ever present friend, Death. 

Generosity. Oh! don't. Death comes soon enough 
without courting and inviting its mysterious associa- 
tion, and you must know that the coward dies a thou^ 
sand times, through fear of the inevitable, while the 
brave and generous man only bows once to the fiat of 
Fate. 

Ah ! what a lovely scene lies here before us, Surely 



88 Nazcr: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

if pleasure can be found on earth, this quiet peaceful 
home should be its abode. This peaked, straggling- 
gabled house, situated in the center of a blooming 
garden, on the banks of a silver stream, margined by 
variegated roses, clambering vines, blushing fruit and 
ripening vegetables, where twittering, flitting birds en- 
hance the vernal scene, must be an emblem of heaven 
on earth, where sin and sorrow never come and whose 
inmates rise and retire with the first and last notes of 
warbling birds. 

This is the land of Charlemagne the hero of chivalry ; 
the realm of Louis le Grande, whose luxury and infi- 
delity undermined the state; the glory and grave of 
Napoleon, whose eagles tore out the entrails of Europe, 
to be in turn lacerated and expire at last, an exile, on 
the barren rocks of St. Helena. 

Yet with all the warning and desolation that man and 
his vaulting ambition brought on this nation; pride, 
pleasure and fantastic frivolities still prevail, 

" Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please." 

A knock at the cottage door disclosed to Genekosity, 
a family room, with a tall young man confronting him, 
a woman about forty years sitting at the head of a 
table and a girl of twenty on her right, with a bloom- 
ing boy of three years sitting on her left. The stran- 
gers were asked to take a seat and join the family at 
breakfast. Generosity introduced himself and com- 
panions to the home of 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Pm^is. 89 

PIERRE LAVELLE. 

Interchange of tliouglit soon broke the icy crust of 
formality. It is a rare occasion when Generosity fails 
to generate affection and confidence, and at the present 
time the mother, for such was the lady at the head of 
the table, wished to unburden her heavy heart to some 
one who could appreciate the pangs that grief brings 
in its gloomy train. 

Generosity inquired for the father of the house, but 
received an evasive answer; yet was told that the 
family were about to visit him at the royal hospital 
situated inside the tall bleak walls of the Paris prison. 
At the mention of the word prison, Generosity, Wit 
and Despair exchanged rapid glances, and then with 
down-cast eyes sank into contemplation. With furtive 
view, they occasionally gazed at the walls of the cot- 
tage, bedecked with rare specimens of art. Pictures 
of forest waterfalls, rolling, meadow landscapes, with 
cattle at the pool, marine and sunset views, as well as 
portraits of ancient gentlemen and royal dames, in the 
scanty costumes of their time, — shone resplendent 
from the walls of the clean cottage. 

On rustic oak brackets and shelves, stood miniature 
pictures, in wood, marble and bronze, of fawns, 
nymphs, lions, eagles and storks ; while on a pedestal at 
the end of the room, covered with pink gauze stood life- 
size figures, in marble, of Adam and Eve, as they 
might have looked, when departing, hand in hand, 
from the garden of Paradise, outcasts and wrecks to 
the sin of disobedience and impulsive passion! 



00 N'azer: n Zig-zdij Pltllosophy. 

A person, with even a surface knowledge of life, 
could see at once, tliat this was, indeed, the home of an 
artist. Mrs, Lavelle as I said before, was about forty 
years of age, with blue eyes and a heavy suit of bright 
blonde hair coiled at the back of her head in the old 
style of rural innocence. Her nose was thin and long, 
while her face was rather round and fair, wearing that 
settled sadness that outlines the inward grief of 
troubled hearts. 

The daughter, Lorain, was young, petite and 
sprightly. She might be considered beautiful were it 
not for an abbreviated nose, and her quick glance, 
that impressed the beholder with a sense of her vanity 
and innate vacillation. She dressed with neatness, but 
at the same time, the startling colors of her garb and 
the profusion of jewelry, indicated a mind prone to 
pleasure, love and admiration. And, after all, show me 
the woman, young or old, that is not subject to deep 
laid flattery and surface admiration. Nature marked 
Lorain in the mold of pouting passion, and art only 
added to the embellishment of her eccentric, dausrerous 
charms. 

The son, Pierre, was a fine, manly fellow of twenty- 
two, standing six feet, and crowned with ja wealth of 
black, curly hair, puffed up over a high forehead. His 
eyes were of a deep hazel hue, nose straight and long, 
lips with the bow of beauty, arching rows of even set 
teeth and a sharp chin, indicating unmistakable deter- 
mination. 

The little boy, Duke, bore but a very small re- 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Pciris. 91 

semblance to his young mother; yet there Avas some- 
thing in his extraordinary gray eyes, broad head and 
impulsive loquacity that betokened a lineage of no 
mean extraction. 

While the family were preparing to visit the father 
in the prison hospital, a knock was heard at the door, 
and upon invitation a modest French lad, about nine- 
teen years of age entered, and was introduced to tiie 
strangers as De Voy de Lay. He was the only son of a 
modest silk weaver who lived adjoining the garden of the 
Lavelle home. His face was indicative of innocence, 
benevolence and confidence, and his mild blue eyes be- 
tokened a heart that had never been seared by sin, and 
a mind that loved the beautiful in nature. His bashful 
glances at Lorain bore the arrows of sorrow; and the 
remembrance of " what might have been " swept over 
his soul like the cold waves of the sea dashing over the 
pale, bleak stones of a stormy strand. 

De Voy and Lorain had been friends from child- 
hood, chasing butterflies, culling flowers, sauntering 
in search of pure pebbles on the shores of the Seine, 
gathering grapes in the mellow autumn days, and 
skipping hand in hand to the village school. 

The old bachelor, Duke Montcalm, had observed 
this happy pair as they roamed over his rich, ancestral 
domain, and often in his tour of inspection, astride of 
his milk white mare, met these loving children picking 
wild flowers or gathering the nuts that had fallen from 
forest trees. He would condescend, on occasions to 
stop and talk to the pair, compliment Lorain on, lier 



92 Nazer: a Zuj-zag Philosophy. 

sprightly appearance, and the young man in having 
such a nice sweetheart. Sometimes, he met Lorain 
alone, and on one particular occasion, suggested that a 
Dolly Varden silk dress, pair of ear-rings and feathered 
l)onnet, would add to her natural beauty and enhance 
her importance in the eyes of the villagers, who are 
ever ready to laud the gaudy trappings of surface pros- 
perity, at the expense of modesty, purity and real 
worth clad in honest linsey-woolsey. 

She, with feigned modesty, looked abashed at the 
Duke, sighed and said her father was only a poor artist 
and could not afPord to give her the adornment the 
noble lord had suggested, although she, herself, would 
be delighted to secure the fine dressing. The old 
Duke, Avho was a noted gallant, intimated that it was 
easy for her to secure what she desired if she would 
call at the castle, and present the card he extended 
with a gracious bow. As the Duke rode away, he 
waved his hand to the vain, foolish girl, throwing a 
playful kiss with the air of one who had already en- 
trapped a foolish fly in the meshes of his glittering 
web. How many spiders through all the ages have 
thus entangled flitting flies in the fine spun gauze of 
their destructive flattery. 

From that moment in the grand old forest, the 
head and weak heart of Lorian was turned and 
she began to drift aAvay from the honest love of her 
youth, to the gilded heights of fashionable fraud and 
ambition. On her way home, visions of city life, balls, 
drives and operas, with fine garments, jewels and rich 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris. 93 

viands, swept across the musings of her mind, causing 
her to forget the humble and obscure home, where* 
clad in country brown, she had been reared, and might 
remain, content, innocent and pure, instead of leaping 
into the vortex of temporary, fleeting pleasure, that 
soon surfeits the devotee and leaves her a despised 
wreck at the doors of those who flattered her beauty, 
only to ruin the temple of hope, health and virtue ! 

DeVoy could see a change in the conduct of his 
loved Lorian since the meeting with the Duke in the 
forest, and we know when the lurking devil of doubt 
once takes possession of the soul where love reigned, 
the victim, like a blasted ruin in a storm, can never 
be perfect again. 

These betrothed children, at the time of which we 
speak were sixteen and seventeen respectively. Dur- 
ing the three subsequent years, sad and desperate 
events transpired, which left in their wake wrinkles, 
shame, poverty and death. 
******* * * 

The Lavelle family finally prepared for perhaps 
the last visit io a husband and father, confined within 
the ponderous jaws of a sombre prison that shone under 
the rays of the setting sun, on a hill top, three miles 
away on the banks of the Seine. Generosity asked on 
behalf of himself and associates, the privilege of ac- 
companying the family to the bedside of the dying 
man. There was no objection. He stepped away to a 
wayside restaurant, across the road, purchased the best 
bottle of wine and basket of fruit in the house, and 



94 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

then joined the mournful train as they walked towards 
the prison in the gathering gloom of an autumn twi- 
light. 

A pull at a bell-knob brought an armed sentinel 
to the window of a huge iron gate. The wife present- 
ed a card of admission, which was taken to the keeper 
who appeared, and after a number of questions ad- 
mitted the whole party into the outer corridor of the 
penal resort, where they were searched, and nothing 
being found to infringe upon the rules of the institu- 
tion, they were conveyed up many winding stone stairs, 
through long halls, until they were at last admitted to 
the upper corner room at the western angle of the 
prison hospital. The wife, son and Generosity passed 
on to the iron cot where the sick and dying man lay. 
The prison surgeon sat by his side noting the rise and 
fall of his heart as it beat against the mysterious 
shores of eternity. 

Lorain and child, DeVoy, "Wit and Despair, re- 
mained near the head of the cot, where the wandering 
eyes of the pale invalid could not see them. 

The departing rays of the sun lit up the gloom of 
the vaulted room, with a glow of celestial light and 
its genial beams streaming through the checkered iron 
bars, made golden squares on the stone floor, and 
gradually the yellow light vanished away like the re- 
membrance of a plaintive dream. But ere the last ray 
had retired to its home in the western sky, Pierre 
Lavelle roused from his seeming stupor, looked around 
the room iu bewildered glances, when, resting his eyes 



On ihc Winq to Venice, l^lorence and Paris. 05 

on his faithful wife, exclaimed, " Lorain," threw his 
arms around the being that had so often encouraged 
his ambition and console*! him in the darkest vale of 
adversity. He pressed his son to his heart with that 
artistic pride that leaves behind a splendid sprout 
from the parent tree. The old-time smile returned, a 
flush came over his thin, pale face, and his large black 
ejes, long dilated nose, stubborn gray hair, and sweep- 
ing, artistic moustache, once more assumed the appear- 
ance of pride, art and life. His wife introduced him 
to a mutual friend, Generosity, who never turned a 
deaf ear to the miseries of misfortune, nor listened to 
the taunts or encomiums of the common herd of mankind 
that rush over the cliffs of conscience and existence 
like a drove of chamois over Alpine mountains to the 
jagged rocks below. Generosity grasped the hand of 
the dying man, exchanged a few words of sympathy 
and consolation, and asked the artist to tell him briefly 
the story of his life, that posterity might justify his 
action and Truth emblazon his fame. 

The idea of securing absolute or even comparative 
justice, on earth, had not entered the prisoner's mind 
until then. With a superhuman effort he lurched al- 
most upward on his pillow and related the following 
interesting story: 

Forty years, to-day, on the first of November, 
I was born in a small back brick court, under the 
shadow of Notre Dame, whose thunder tone bells 
awakened my first recollection. My mother died in 
giving me birth, and the only memento I have ever 



90 Nazcr: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

had of her sacrificing love is this small medallion of a 
beautiful face my father gave me ou his death bed. 

I was the only child, and until I was thirteen years 
of age, lived under the loving care of a devoted grand- 
mother, who trained my early footsteps in the walks of 
purity, and instilled into my heart lessons of honesty, 
sobriety and truth. 

My father was an ornamental sign painter and also 
indulged in land, marine and figure painting. He did 
not marry after the death of my mother, but pursued 
his trade with avidity, contributing to the support of 
his old mother and myself with unerring regularity. 
He lived in a small hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, 
while my grandmother and self continued to reside in 
the small house, where my eyes first beheld the light of 
day. The first Sunday in each month he devoted to my- 
self and his mother, never failing to bring a bottle of 
wine for the tottering old dame, and a basket of fruit, 
cakes, candies and nuts to cheer my young heart and 
satisfy my appetite. 

At the age of seven I was sent to the parish school, 
where theological students and priests imparted to me 
the beauties of religion, the great importance of com- 
mitting my catechism to memory, and the awful sub- 
limity of confirmation, confession and communion. 
It seems to me now that unless I went through these 
three last commands of the church that my soul would 
be lost, and God, my creator, would turn his back on 
me unless I religiously complied with the edicts of 
man! 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris. 97 

But I have thought and learned, long since, that 
flesh, blood, bones and brain, like mine own, know as 
little about the maker of the sun, moon and stars as 
myself, and as to the bill of fare that may be presented 
to me beyond the grave I am as well prepared to 
scan and endure it as any person, prince or potentate 
that ever came on the stage of life to " fret and strut 
his little hour and then be heard no more." 

I early betrayed a talent for drawing the faces of 
my school mates, daubing the distant landscapes on 
pasteboard placques and sketching the rude statues that 
adorned the parks, gardens and buildings of Paris. 
When my father visited me I displayed these youth- 
ful efforts to his astonishment and pleasure. At the 
age of fourteen I was apprenticed to an artist named 
David, who had a studio near the Louvre, and did a 
thriving business in portrait painting, some of the 
noblest men and women of the capital being his patrons. 
The old artist took a great pride in my welfare and 
often predicted, that with strict application and patient 
study I would become a worthy disciple of Angelo and 
Raphael. 

I remained in nis employ for a term of three years 
and was considered an expert in the details of my pro- 
fession. I not only drew faces and figures from life, 
but painted land and water scape pictures in my sum- 
mer rambles along the Rhine, Rhone and while climb- 
ing Swiss and Alpine mountains. I also designed and 
executed ideal pictures in illustrating poems from the 
grand old masters of antiq^uity. 

7 



98 . Nazer: a Zig-zag Pldlosopliy. 

It was my habit to rise with the sun, and saunter 
out into the cool pleasant parks of Paris, and feast my 
eyes on flowers and trees, or listen entranced to the 
ringing melody of bright birds. In one of my morn- 
ing rambles I halted under a large flowering orange 
tree in the Luxumburg garden, and lost in the realms 
of revery, gazed vacantly at the variegated scene before 
me, while the orchestra of tame and wild warblers 
filled the air with delicious harmony. 

I always carried in my pockets some grain or sweet 
nuts to entice the sparrows, black birds or robins to 
linger near and eat from my hand. This particular 
morning now in my mind above all others, they seemed 
more familiar than ever, and hopped on my head, 
shoulders and hands perfectly confident that I was their 
friend, for be it known that the most insignificant of 
God's animated creatures can be tamed by kindness 
and love, when indifference and cruelty will only elicit 
a scratch, sting or bite. 

Just across the gravel walk under another orange 
tree I beheld a fresh blooming blonde, feeding birds. 
They were gathered about her ^:>y the score and seem- 
ed to be perfectly at ease in her society. There was 
one large robin red breast that would flit from my 
hand to that of the young lady, a kind of affinity mes- 
senger between hearts that loved at first sight. We 
could not help noticing the circumstance ; but when the 
robin flew from my hand to that of the girl, who kissed 
the bird, I no longer hesitated in saluting the fascinat- 
ing being who inspired love's young dream. She re- 



On iliG Wing (o Venice, Florence and Paris. 99 

sponded with a coquettish glance, and from that 
moment to this, Lorain, my dear wife, has been all the 
world to me. 

Lorain was the only daughter of a silk merchant 
who kept a fine establishment in the Latin Quarter. 
Great care had been taken with her education, and in 
the circle in which she moved everyone acknowledged 
her to be an expert in dress, music, painting and 
poetry. Our love soon ripened into intense passion, 
romantic and ideal ; and without her parents' knowledge 
we frequently met under flowering arbors, lunched at 
the rich caf6s, attended the opera or sauntered through 
the fascinating haunts of the Mabile garden. Through 
some source, the parents discovered our infatuation, 
and secret meetings, and charged Lorain with duplicity 
and ingratitude, and peremptorily ordered her to pre- 
pare at once for a trip to the Orient. 

In twenty-four hours the ship would sail from Nice 
and she must be ready to accompany her fond parents. 
Lorain seemed to acquiesce in the programme, but 
through her confidential dressing maid (and no wealthy 
girl should be without one) I received this note, next 
to my heart, which speaks for itself: 

Hotel De Lisle, No. 13, 92. 
My own Pierre : 

My parents have discovered all. They accuse me 
of loving below r^j station, and have ordered me to 
sail with them to-tnorrow from Nice on a tour to the 
Orient, that may last two years. 

I shall not go, and if your asseveration of love is 
true and lasting, meet me to-night at 8 o'clock by the 



100 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

stone gate at the end of the garden, and make me 
yours forever. Eeply to this immediately, or never 
look upon my face again. Yours until death, 

LOEAIN. 

I at once scribbled off this reply : 

Back Brick Court, No. 3, 92. 
My own Lorain : 

I shall be with you at the time and place men- 
tioned, and arrange with my parish priest to tie the 
the silken knot that shall bind us forever. 

Eternally Yours, 

Pierre. 

Promptly, as the clock in the citadel tower chimed, 
with its iron tongue and brazen lips, the hour of eight 
I was under the passion flowers at the stone gate, and 
Lorain fell into my arms like a truant bird into the 
enfolding wings of love. An hour after we were mar- 
ried by my parish priest. My master, David, and a 
few artistic friends from our club were the only wit- 
nesses of the ceremony. After the usual congratula- 
tions were extended to us, I invited the whole party, 
about a dozen including the young priest, to participate 
in a supper that my dear old grandmother had prepared 
in the little front parlor. 

By a previous arrangement I had my father to ap- 
pear at ten o'clock, for the purpose of seeing the 
fulfillment of my apprenticeship, not mentioning a 
word about my contemplated marriage. As the old 
wooden clock in the corner struck forth, with its slow, 
monotonous hammer on the anvil of time, a knock at 
the door aroused those at the table, and in stepped m^ 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris. 101 

father, wearing a look between amazement and pleas- 
ure. I first introduced him to my wife, Lorain, next 
to the jolly young priest, then to my master, David, 
and last to the wild but genial companions with whom 
I had so often wandered in search of artistic subjects 
or indulged in the gay revels that the midnight and 
morning lights of Paris alone can furnish. 

Of course, the contrast between the palatial nome 
of Lorain, and my grandmother's, was startling; yet 
she did not betray a sign of disappointment or regret, 
fi'om that day to this. There was no " perfumed 
light stealing through the midst of alabaster lamps," 
no " air, heavy with the sigh of orange groves," but, 
there was good wine and confections, wit, song and 
story, and above all, honest upright hearts that needed 
not the glittering trappings of wealth, to fashion pre- 
tenders, or the wand of power to palliate the truth. 

The hours flew away rapidly on the wings of love 
and pleasure, and it was past twelve o'clock when my 
generous guests retired, wishing me all the happiness 
that confidence could bestow in this world, where 
faith and love ruled over household felicity. 

"Noiseless falls the foot of time 
That only treads on flowers." « 

At the small desk in my up-stairs front room, Lo- 
rain sat down before she retired and Avrote. 

Back Beick Court, No. 3, 92. 
My Dear Father : 

A few hours ago I was married to Pierre Lavelle, 
a young artist who lives at this address. 



102 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy 

Forgive my disobedience. I would rather die than 
marry your selection, the Duke Montcalm. I prefer 
to live a life of labor and even endure the pangs of 
poverty with the man I love than wear the cold jewels 
and gaudy purple that shine in the train of a Bourbon 
rouie. Your naughty, but loving daughter. 

LoEAiN LeCroix. 
Hon. Camile LeCroix 
No. 13, Hotel DeLisle, Paris, France. 

When the old proud-blooded Bourbon received this 
note, and read it at his breakfast taMe, he turned pale 
with grief and anger, fell from his seat to the floor, 
and was carried by his only son and the butler to his 
gorgeous room, where he lingered with a paralytic 
stroke for about a year, when he died and was buried 
in Pere le Chaise in the grand mausoleum that had 
sheltered the dust of the LeCroix family for ages. He 
never expressed a desire to see Lorain. When his 
will was opened it was found that his daughter had been 
disinherited, and her brother, Camile, made sole heir 
and proprietor of the immense wealth accumulated by 
care, prudence and economy. 

The mother died of a broken heart two years after 
the demise of the father, and while Lorain endeavored 
to see the aristocratic dame before her death, the 
brother who had married a lady with a fortune larger 
than his own, manipulated matters so adroitly, that his 
sister never laid eyes on her mother, whose heart had 
been shattered by the impulsive, but natural conduct 
of a daughter who would not sell her body and soul to 
the pleas of wealth and ambition.. 



On the Wing io Venice, Plorence and Paris. 103 

I established a studio in the skylight garret of my 
brick home, had all the orders I could fill, and was 
honorably mentioned and awarded medals from some 
of the best salons of Paris. One of my pictures, a 
group of dancing fawns and nymphs in the greenwood, 
was exhibited in the Louvre, took a prize and was 
finally purchased by the Duke de Beauregard. 

Portraits and landscape pictures brought me a 
steady income, and with my wife, son and daughter we 
enjoyed the pleasures of this gay capital and retained 
the respect and love of our neighbors. 

About ten years after my marriage my father and 
grandmother died within six months of each other and 
were entombed side by side in Pere le Chaise. Twelve 
years ago I sold out my worldly goods in the little 
brick court and removed to the cottage from whence 
you came to-day. There I erected my household 
gods, and expected among fruits, flowers, birds and 
artistic friends to spend the remainder of my life in 
peace and pleasure. I joined the social, political and 
philosophic clubs, and in time became a disciple of red 
hot Republicanism. In argument at the clubs I was 
considered a match for the best in debate, and as my 
heart was naturally imbued with art and liberty, I took 
the most advanced steps with the radicals. I did not ob- 
trude my opinion on others, but when occasion requir- 
ed me to discuss the principles of truth and the nature 
of government, I never hid my sentiments behind the 
well-worn shield of policy, nor did I sacrifice the pul- 
sations of my heart at the altar of expedience. 



104 Nazef: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

I would not, like most of mankind, " crook the preg- 
nant hinges of the knee, that thrift might follow fawn- 
ing," and thereby, no doubt lost many material benefits 
that my subservient companions obtained, 

I calculated a God from my own standpoint, not 
taking the dictum of proxy preachers or princes for 
my own conclusions. I saw in the dew, rain, brook, 
river, valleys and mountains, seas and stars, suns and 
storms, mere emblems of that Unknown Divinity that 
stirred within me. The creeds of pigmy men I could 
not harbor or entertain. The acceptance of theologi- 
cal truth in one century, I knew was laughed to scorn 
and ridiculed in the next, and the religion manufac- 
turers of mankind were as much at variance with them- 
selves as the deluded, thinkless followers, who sang 
hosannas to their cupidity, arrogance, bigotry and 
imagination. 

I did not find one of the tinkers hammering at the 
cracked, cast-iron pot of religion, that could tell me a 
single fact beyond the tomb; and with all their boasted 
power and mysterious mummery — the moss-backed 
precedents of ages — the whole conclave put together 
could not make a blade of grass or save themselves 
from the terrible gloom of the grave. 

I can only feel that — 

A moment after death my soul shall be 
Free from the cruel chains of sordid earth, 
Still floating on some wild, chaotic sea 
As 'twas the moment of its unsought birth. 

Time grew on apace; the river ran in freshness 



071 the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris. 105 

beside my cottage door; the flowers bloomed with 
sweetness iu my little garden, and the spring birds 
built their nests and sang their melodious songs to 
greet the flashing footsteps of the dawn. Nature wore 
her greenest garb and her face was lit up with the 
sunniest smiles. 

When everything seemed to speak of peace and per- 
fection my wife rushed into my studio one bright 
June morning, and demanded my immediate presence 
in the room of our daughter. I dropped my brush, 
instanter, on the palette, I held before a life-size picture 
of Venus, which had been ordered for the private par- 
lor of Mirabeau. The scene that met my gaze, stupi- 
fied my understanding and unhinged the balance 
wheels of my brain. I upbraided Lorain with treach- 
ery, sin and shame, and demanded, under pain of 
immediate death, the author of her disgrace and ruin — - 
the name of the social assassin who had invaded the 
sacred precientsof my home. Between her heart- 
broken sobs and flowing tears she gasped out, "the 
Duke, Montcalm !" This was enough. I had lived on 
his estate four years, although he did not know that 
my wife was the woman who disdained to bestow upon 
him her heart and hand, preferring the honest love of 
a poor artist to the doubtful and changeable passion of 
an aristocratic roue. I flew to my cabinet, withdrew 
therefrom a brace of dueling pistols, charged them 
with care and precision, and rushed out into the grand 
old forest of the Duke Montcalm. 

I was delirious with humiliation and passion, rush- 



106 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

ing along the wide gravel road towards the castle, 
when turning a circle in the road, under a thick clump 
of overhanging walnuts, I beheld the Duke on his 
prancing palfrey, enjoying his morning ride through 
his rich domain. He glanced at me with an aristo- 
cratic, sardonic leer, knowing that I was one of the 
numerous tenants on his estate. I immediately stepped 
before his horse, grasped the bridle, accused him of 
the desolation he had brought on my household when, 
quick as a flash, he drew his shining side sword and 
aimed to cut me down, but ere his bright blade dealt 
the fatal blow, I raised my pistol, fired, sent a bullet 
through his corrupt heart and he fell a corpse at my 
feet. 

I gazed intently into his pale face, convinced my- 
self that he was dead, then turned away to the bustl- 
ing rattle of Paris, sought the Prefect of police, told 
him the facts and was locked up to await indictment 
and trial. 

When the craunching and clanking sound of the 
prison gate sounded in my ear for the first time, I 
felt a sense of peace and consolation ; peace, that I was 
out of the reach of the vultures of society, and con- 
solation that I had been the instrument of nature to 
wipe from the face of the earth, a prowling tiger, who 
had no doubt desolated many homes before mine had 
been invaded. The papers of Paris were filled with 
long and lying accounts of what they termed a 
dastard assassination. The reporters and editors vied 
with each other in giving detailed accounts of the so- 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris. 101 

called murder, although they had not the slightest 
personal knowledge o£ the causes that led to the just 
retribution or taking off of a prowling, social hyena. 
But it is often the case that those who know the least 
of anything arrogate to themselves most information, 
and make up in pompous pretences what they lack in 
principle and truth. While professing to be your 
friend in prosperity they are secretly trimming their 
sails to glide away when adverse gales beset you. 
You elbow these hypocrites daily. 

I was duly indicted for murder in the first degree, 
and arraigned before a jury of my so-called peers. The 
judge who presided at the trial had the form of a 
burgomaster, the eye of an Oriental owl, the face of a 
full moon, and a voice like the grunt of a wild boar. 

The lawyers for the prosecution, and the crown 
counsellors were rigged out in elaborate costumes, 
and had tomes of legal lies piled up before them, as if 
the fate of France hung trembling in the scales of 
justice. I was promptly placed in the dock. The 
judge asked if I had any counsel. I replied in the 
negative, stating that what little money I had saved 
from honest toil, must go to the support of my family, 
instead of filling the fat pockets of prosperous lawyers, 
who grow rich and haughty by the foolish credulity, con- 
tention and crimes of mankind; a class of cormorants 
that live on the misfortunes of poor human nature. 

I was then asked to plead to the indictment, charg- 
ing me with the murder of the Duke Montcalm. I 
rose and made a statement of the whole case to the 



108 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy, 

jury, saying if they considered it murder to kill a 
wolf, who had invaded the virtuous precincts of their 
homes, then I was guilty of the charge. 

The attorney general made a long speech in reply, 
trying to show that I was one of the worst men that 
ever lived, and that the Duke was a perfect saint. 

The judge read a list of long, weighty instructions 
to the jury in a slow, harsh, monotonous tone, rounding 
up his great legal lore, with the awful, sage remark, 
that if I was innocent they should return a verdict of 
" not guilty," and if I was guilty, they should return 
a verdict of " guilty." 

The ladies and gentlemen in the body of the court 
room, as well as those spectators in the gallery, and 
the members of the bar, murmured a cheer for the 
great wisdom of the judge's charge, when his honor, 
reluctantly no doubt, ordered the bailiff to preserve 
" silence in the court," and check the enthusiasm his 
instructions had caused. I could not for my life see 
any great wisdom and force in the charge of the judge, 
except the temporary power he held over the misery of 
one of his fellow men. 

The jury retired, as usual, remained absent an hour, 
when they returned with a verdict of "guilty," but at 
the same time recommended me to the mercy of the 
court and'tlie clemency of the crown, owing to certain 
justifiable and mitigating circumstances connected 
with the case. 

I was remanded to prison for ten days until the 
court and crown considered the expediency of sending 



On the Wing to Venice, Florence and Paris. 109 

me to prison for life or to the guillotine for eternity. 
The death verdict was finally set aside, and I was called 
up to be sentenced for life at hard labor. 

The judge asked me what I had to say before the 
sentence of the court was pronounced. 

I arose, the central object of all eyes in that 
crowded court ; and feeling in my heart of hearts that 
I had only performed a just act, spoke as follows: 

Your honor, I have nothing to say that will change 
the conclusions of the court and crown. A jackal 
came prowling about my home and I killed him, and 
under like circumstances I would be delighted to slay 
a thousand of such midnight prowlers and leave their 
corrupt carcasses to fester and bleach on the hillsides 
of France. 

I stand here to-day, strong and bold in conscious 
innocence, and instead of receiving the rebuke of 
society, I should be released, awarded praise and the 
highest commendation for my heroic act. My heart 
was actuated by the noble impulse that nerved 
Winkelreid, when he opened a breach for the liberty 
of his country, or by that lofty courage that inspired 
Socrates when he drank the hemlock to the immor- 
tality of the soul. 

For myself, I have no fear of any punishment on 
earth, yet, in behalf of my past good character, this 
being the first suspicion of guilt that ever darkened 
my life, and in consideration of the support I owe my 
wife and children, I ask that magnanimity at this bar 
of justice, that would be reasonably claimed by your- 



110 Nazcr: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

self under like circumstances. A few short years will 
sepulchre the living of to-day with the dead of yester, 
day, and the celestial sunlight of to-morrow will bring 
us all to the bar of omnipotence, where the judo-e, 
jury, lawyer and client will meet upon the level of 
eternity and part upon the square of final judgment. 
Then all hearts will be laid bare and truth will rise in 
magnificent triumph. 

The blood of conscious innocence flows free and un- 
ruffled through this frame, and the terrors that surround 
the victims of designed crime, find no lodgment in my 
heart. 

The walls that hemmed in Galileo, Columbus and 
Tasso did not measure the minds of the men. It is 
true, their bodies suffered some torture but the proud 
spirits that rose in their liearts, leaped the bounds of 
clay and soared away into the illimitable regions of 
science and poetry. Humble as I am in the walks of 
life, my soul is inspired by their illustrious example; 
and it shall be my future endeavor to show the world 
that although I may suffer for a time the penalty of 
outraged passion and nature, yet, like a mountain crag, 
I shall breast the pelting storms of life, lift my head, 
clear and bold to the coming sunshine of Truth and 
celestial redemption. 

At the conclusion of my defence I was immediately 
sentenced for life to the gloomy surroundings of this 
prison ; and now you see me wasting away with mental 
anxiety and consumption, the victim of my own des- 



On iho WiiKj lo Florence, Venice and Fan's. Ill 

peration, the destroyer of the dastard duke, but the 
defender of virtue and my deluded daughter, Lorain. 

At the mention of Lorain, she flew to the bed side 
of her father, grasped his hand and exclaimed, "father, 
forgive me." The dying man sunk back on his pillow, 
opened his large black eyes, glanced about the room 
with a vacant, lunatic stare, involuntarily placed his 
right hand on the head of his daughter and with his 
last gasp, finally whispered," forgiven," and then Pierre 
Lavelle was dead. 

He ceased and sank into the gloom of night, 
And left behind no ray of cheering light, 
While all his conversation did but seem 
The vestige of a vain and vanished dream. 



CHAPTEB X. 

LONDON, ITS GUILT AND GLORY. 

Generosity. Well, my waggish Wit, it is proper 
that we fly away on the wings of thought, and leave 
our attachment. Despair, to pine and mourn with the 
French family, who are really, the victims of thought- 
lessness, indiscretion and passion. I, myself, have 
been prone through all the ages, to commit, uninten- 
tionally, many outlandish acts, for which I have suf- 
fered uncomplainingly. My " friends" and neighbors? 
would often look askant at my, seemingly, wayward 
course and deplore the conduct that gossips dished up 
for their edification. But I knew, as I have said before, 
when my impulsive acts, night and day were compared 
with their own politic secretiveness, a large credit 
mark would be placed opposite my name by the record- 
ing angel, who knows all hearts, and that their plastic, 
bated-breath propriety, would be set down under the 
heading of discreet hypocrisy. 

I once loved a beautiful girl myself. How I'd 
fondle, and tangle my hands in her hair. Her name 
was Janette, and a poetic gentlemen named Miles 
O'Reilly " across the water, wrote these loves line to her 
memory : 

113 



London, Its Guilt and Glory. 113 

Oh ! loosen the snood that you wear, Janette, 
Let me tangle a hand in your hair, my pet, 
For the world to me has no daintier sight 
Than your brown hair veiling your shoulders white, 
As I tangled a hand in your hair, my pet. 

It was brown with a golden gloss, Janette, 

It was finer than silk of the floss, my pet; 

Twas a beautiful mis'- falling down to your wrist; 

Twas a thing to be braided and jeweled and kissed; 

Twas the loveliest hair in the world, my pet. 

My arm was the arm of a clown, Janette, 

It was sinewy, bristled and brown, my pet, 

But warmly "and softly, it loved to caress 

Your round white neck and your wealth of tress; 

Your beautiful plenty of hair, my pet. ; 

Your eyes had a swimming glory, Janette, 
Revealing the old, dear story, my pet; 
They were gray with that chastened tinge of the sky 
When the trout leaps quickest to snap the fly; 
And they matched with your golden hair, my pet. 

Your lips, but I have no words, Janette, 
Were fresh as the twitter of birds, my pet; 
When the spring is young and the roses are wet 
With dew drops in each red bosom set, 
And they suited your gold brown hair, my pet. 

Oh' you tangled my life in your hair, Janette; 
Twas a silken and golden snare, my pet; 
But so gentle the bondage, my soul did implore 
The right to continue your slave evermore 
With my fingers enmeshed in your hair, my pet. 

Thus ever I dream what you were, Janette, 

With your lips and your eyes and your hair, my pet; 

In the darkness of desolate years I moan 

And my tears fall bitterly over the stone 

That covers your golden hair, my pet. 
(•g * ***** 



114 Nazcr: a Zi<)-zag Philosophy. i 

Ah! how the evening air expands my wings, invig- 
orates my heart, the smell of this narrow salt sea, 
evaporates for my pleasure. Look how the rolling, 
verdant waves sparkle under the luminous footsteps of 
the rising moon, and answers back the screech of the 
wild sea mew; how the gathering, shifting clouds, 
bright and black, mirror themselves in the troubled 
features of the sounding sea ; and the concave, universal 
sky ushers forth its myriad of stars as altar candles 
around the throne of the great Jehovah ! 

Listen to the roar of the troubled channel as it 
lashes the sides of these chalk cliffs that have with- 
stood the rage of old ocean since the dawn of creation. 
Away, over rolling hills, green meadows and silver 
streams, to that murmuring multitude of human may- 
flies, Avho have buzzed their way all over the world and 
planted their standard of trade, language and li])erty 
wherever man could be found. All nations have heard 
the conquering footsteps of old Albion, and while her 
])rutality has often disgraced the civilization of the 
age, her sway has, in the long run, advanced the arts 
and sciences, propelled forward the lazy car of prog- 
ress, and lifted nations of barbarians up to the plane 
of Christian charity. 

Hark ! methinks I can hear the voice of Truth and 
Love discoursing amid these crowded streets below; 
and as the yellow glare of corner lamps emit an aroma 
not of Araby, I can yet discern throvigh clouds of 
smoke, the various haunts of virtue, vanity and vice. 
Here, once more, on the crumbling arches of London 



London, Us Guili and Glory. 115 

bridge, we will follow in the wake of the jostling 
throng, see, hear and feel what the liearts of men an, I 
women conjure up and promulgate. 

Teuth. Ah ! my dear Generosity, we've met 
asfain. You must have have had some strange ex- 
poriences since last we met. Where are your com- 
panions. Wit and Despair? 

Generosity. Here comes Wit through the crowd, 
wearing his cap and bells as usual, trying to make a 
fool of himself for the edification of the unthinking 
rabble, but it is a severe task, as the more he at- 
tempts to act the fool the more is his failure appar- 
ent to the wise. He knows full well that the philoso- 
pher, who can disguise his own real thoughts behind 
a misty haze of unmeaning v/ords, v/ill finally "work"" 
those who take him for a fool, and accomplish by indi- 
rection what he could not do by direct assault. 

I left Despair at the bedside of death in a prison in 
Paris, bewailing with a French family, that had been 
brought to disgrace and ruin by the sin of disobedi- 
ence and unbridled passion. 

Truth. My own sweet Love, now have you fared 
since we last met on the towering heights of mount 
Olympus ? 

Love. With my companions, Hope and sardonic 
Hate, I lingered a few days at Constantinople, sailed on 
the sea of Marmora, rode in the Sultan's galley 
through the Golden Horn, visited the grand mosques, 
listen to the Muezzin call the hour of prayer from 
the tapering towers and minarets and feasted in sump- 



il6 JSfazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

tuous style at the royal harem. I soon tired of the 
languor, jealousy and brutality that prevailed over 
everything, from the poor home of the peasant to the 
pinnacled palace of the prince. The dark spots on the 
soul of these Orientals, and their daily life of idleness 
and passion, guarantee a sure decay of the kingdom ; 
and like the small pox, black vomit and cholera, when 
once allowed to spread, never fail to obliterate the 
objects of their attack. A few years will erase from 
the earth the memory of these torrid Turks, and some 
northern nation, with the vitality of the frozen zone, 
will SAveep over their plains and mountains, leaving 
their fields and cities in ruin and ashes, and their 
marble shrines of worship, heaps of undistinguished 
rubbish, where night birds, reptiles and prowling 
beasts shall be the only living objects to croak, hiss 
and howl over the dead remains of the empire. After 
leaving Constantinople, I remained a few days at Mos- 
cow, the ancient capital of the Muscovites, a line of 
wild freebooters, and the coronation city of the Czars. 
The memorials of Ivan the Terrible, Paul the Insane, 
Peter the Great, and Catherine the Passionate, are 
seen on every turn; yet the advancement, in real civili- 
zation and genuine liberty, of the scattered hordes of 
Russia, along the pathway of a thousand years, has 
been slow, uncertain and unavailing to the great 
masses, who are still but ignorant boors, shouldering 
the burdens of life for a few reigning families, whose 
ancestors secured dominion by the torch, lance, cleaver 
and bullet, and conquered like any other band of rob- 



London, lis Guilt and Gloi'y. 117 

bers, that liad the brutal power to murder their fellow 
men. 

I reined uj) my steeds of my imagination on the 
bleak and sterile mountains of Siberia, after a flight 
of five thousand miles over snowy plains and inter luin- 
ablo forests. Scattered over thousands of miles you be- 
hold small towns, filled with imprisoned exiles, doomed 
to long years of dreary, cruel labor, or a life of banish- 
ment, for no other reason than that of rebelling against 
the outrageous exactions and persecutions that bloated 
tyranny inaugurates. 

Here, you see men and women of education from 
Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities of the Rus- 
sian empire, driven together into the deep, dark mines 
of the Ural mountains, delving night and day for iron, 
copper, silver, gold and diamonds. These unfortunate 
people were once enjoying the luxuries that wealth and 
power commanded, and many of theni were borne on 
the rolls of the nobility, serving in the navy, army or 
civil lists of the empire. But, for some reason, they 
were suspected of conspiring against the powers of 
State, in the interest of a broader liberty: and it is a 
well known fact that a person once suspected in Russia 
by the Argus-eyed police, might as well deliver him- 
self up to imprisonment or exile, for the judiciary of 
of that unlimited monarchy is but the mouthpiece of 
the Czar, and the pliant tool of state officials. 

The path of progress, however, cannot be always 
impeded by the boulders that tyrants tumble into the 
road; and while it rises and sinks like a mountain 



118 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

liigliway, it steadily tends to the top, and sooner or 
later readies the highest point in the peak, where the 
weary traveler can look back with pride and supreme 
satisfaction over the winding declivities he has scaled 
to the heights of Freedom. 

The knout, the prisot, exile and the scaffold will 
couhinue for many years yet to punctuate the policy of 
Russian raonarchs towards their suffering subjects: 
but as sure as the sun shines and eternal justice reigns, 
these instruments of tyranny shall be but the stepping 
stone3 to the tall temple of Liberty, and the altars 
around which the martyrs of Freedom swing the in- 
cense of patriotism and truth. 

I dropped in at the Winter Palace of St. Peters- 
burg, where suspicion, fear and remorse kill sleep, 
appetite and pleasure. Here you find brutality and 
tyranny wrapped in furs and feeding on the wages of 
misfortune and crime. Bloated and swelling, like the 
toad, but with extension and distention, approaching 
that sure collapse and disintegration always following 
pride and excess. 

I ordered Hope to remain for a season with the 
Czar Hate, thinking that some light of truth and 
justice might flash across his mind, and induce him to 
lift the yoke off the necks of millions of Russian oxen. 

Truth. I, too, have had a sad and checkered ex- 
p'3rience. I stopped, in my wanderings, a short time 
to viow the ancient city of Nazer, buried millions 
of years ago for the sin of ingratitude, and I was so 
pestered with your sister, Envy, and my half-brother, 



London, Ifs GaiU and Ulorij. 119 

Hypocrisy, that I winked at my master, Fate, who 
buried them beneath an ocean of impalpable dust. 

In this great city I expect to find better things, 
where pride and selfishness keep in the background, 
and modest worth receives the honor of the State. 
Eighteen hundred years ago, I stood on the site of 
this bridge as the slow current of the sluggish 
stream ran amid the virgin meadows and forests to 
the sea. 

The Roman, the Pict, the Celt, the Saxon, the Dane 
and the Norman have swept in turn over these hills, 
vales and streams in search of booty, beauty and glory. 
Perhaps there is no spot on the earth of the same 
dimensions, that has suffered from the ravages of man 
in his eternal search for gold and power, more than the 
islands of England, Scotland and Ireland. 

Hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, the 
wild Britons inhabited these vales and hills, thrown up 
by the sea in one of its subterranean convulsions. 
These people were savage and cruel, like all the forest 
denizens of the world. They were clad in the skins of 
wild beasts, and secured their food from the stream, 
forest and air. They were divided into fifty or more 
tribes, each band having a chief who led them in their 
continual raids of robbery and murder. Their huts 
were along the streams or in the depths of dark forests, 
and their faces were painted with red earth to give 
them a more ghastly hue and savage appearance. 

A species of sharp and lazy preacher sprung up 
among these rude creatures and started a new religion — ■ 



120 Nazcr: a Zifi-zag Philosophy. 

a tiling to cajole the weak and terrorize tlie strong. 
They called themselves Druids, and taught that it was 
the proper thing to bow down and worship the sun, 
moon and stars, serpents, sticks and great stones, and 
for a real downright compliment and sacrifice to God, 
they would occasionally fit up a large wicker cage, fill 
it with human beings and other animals, and then 
when the mistletoe bloomed on the oak, in the bleak 
winter time, they would fire the cage in one of their 
so-called sacred groves, and amid the cries and lamen- 
tations of these poor victims, offer up long and loud 
prayers to appease the wrath of an Unknown God. 

The priests and preachers of to-day are not so blunt 
in their sacrifices; yet they know just as much of the 
God they profess to teach, as the ancient Druids, who 
carried around enchanters wands and wore about their 
necks serpentine eggs to intimidate their devotees. 
These temples, towers and spires pointing to the stars 
to-night are but the emblems of man's vanity, and yon 
ancient abbey, containing the advertised corruptions 
of the past, but a mausoleum milestone of egotism and 
royal iniquity. 

Look at this rich, beautiful, high-walled house, at 
the head of the street, near the bank. Here once 
lived " Old Benevolence.'' He was knoAvn to the com- 
munity as a patriot and a mild, good man. His 
birthright was not distinctly defined, and it was said 
that his youth was spent in a haphazard way, between 
the vale of starvation and the hill top of the shabby- 
genteel. His age was over fifty. He wore scant 



Lniidon Us GuiU and Glory. 12i 

hair, a fishy, grayish eye, a long crooked nose over a 
beaming, oily face, and a voice that swung between 
lower bass and high falsetto. 

" Old Benevolence " learned the trade of a printer, 
an 1 in ti;n3 became a scribbler for the London press. 
He would go to all kinds of places for information ; 
tike risks when he was sure of no danger, and had the 
f .10 111 ty of reaping glory and gold at the expense of his 
a3|uaintance3, and so called friends. He was popular 
v/ifch the unthinking rabble, and " faded ladies," who 
are ever ready to pick up any blatent, loud- mouthed 
fraud, showing a little more cheek and gall than them- 
salves. He was finally elected to parliament by a 
" scratch vote," and by some " hook or crook " mana- 
g3d to impress his colleagues with the force of his 
genius, or, what is much better, impudent audacity. 
He married the only daughter of a Manchester weaver, 
setfclad at the West end, kept open house, joined the 
clubs, drove four-in-hand through the parks with 
belles and beaux, attended theaters and operas in 
swell suits, toadied around royalty, and by a system of 
lo1)by and legislative trickery, became rich, arrogant 
and domineering, like all beggars on horseback. 

But there were many in the roaring crowd of vanity 
fair who knew that he made his money by secret, 
fraudulent means, and that while posing at May Fair 
and the Derby, his cowardly soul balanced between the 
gloomy walls of Newgate and Portland, and the tight 
r >pe at Tyburn. To see him around business 
o'fic3:i and among his social chums, you would think a 



Ili2 Nazer: a Ziy-zag Philosapfiy. 

more noble or charitable man could noL be foiiiid. 
Yet, at liome, it was known by the unfortunate few, 
that he cajoled his cook, blustered at his butler, 
cheated and worried his coachman, ground down the 
wages of his gardener and tyrannized over his miser- 
able family. The children slunk away when they heard 
his footsteps night or day ; his poor, tortured wife, 
wished him, in her heart of hearts, a thousand times a 
day in Davy Jones' locker. A black shadow of social 
fear fell over his own mansion when he entered it, and 
the sunlight glinted when he departed. 

The more he robbed according to custom and law, 
the more greedy he became, until at last the eye and 
tongue of detection began to see and tell of his im- 
moral escapades. 

He was a silent partner in the general brokerage 
house of A. Spider & Co. They bought and sold all 
kinds of stocks, grains and values. 

" Old Benevolence " had a large number of club 
and other friends to whom he gave " pointers," on the 
prospective rise and fall of stocks. They followed him 
like an oracle, and put their cash up at the house of A. 
Spider <fe Co., feeling assured that it was " all right.' 
He would put up his own cash side by side with the 
best of them, and when they lost, as was the case eight 
times out of ten, he took his loss with a cynical smile, 
while his "friends" turned away with a growl to the 
clubs, and smothered their grief in the wine cup. 

But were you around the brokers' office at the night 
of the last of each month, you might behold " Old 



London, Ifs Giult and Glor/j. 123 

Benevolence," receiving back what he had lost, and 
also his ^Jro rata share of the profits swindled oat of 
green goslings, who are roped in by shrewd " cappers " 
like " O. B." 

Towards the end of his life, fear took hold of the 
"whited sepulchre," and he began to seek out means 
to mollify the growing suspicion and latent anger of 
the community. It was announced in the Times that 
" Old Benevolence " was about to erect a home and 
hospital for working girls, and that he had already 
given ten thousand pounds to endow a chair of theolo- 
gy at Oxford. He also gave five thousand pounds for 
the erection of a drinking fountain for man and beast 
at the end of Rotten Row, and to cap the climax, gave 
in one lump a hundred thousand pounds to erect an 
equestrian allegorical statue in front of the House of 
Commons; "Britain" crossing the Atlantic in one 
stride, with sword and trident, impaling the American 
eagle on her mountain crag. 

However, the more he appropriated of the money 
filched from the pockets of the people by chican- 
ery, the more they asked hov/ did this man get it ? 
There was but one answer, he had no visible means 
of material support, except his earnings as a legislator. 
So the great and good mass of the overburdened asses 
finally made up their minds that he must have saved 
his sala,ry, in the long and weary years he had labored 
for their interest ! 

And, thus, " Old Benevolence " has gone on from 
that day to this, in every land and clime, stealing mil- 



124 Nazer: a Zig-zag Fhilosopluj. 

lioiis from the oppressed people witli his right hand, 
and paying them back in paltry driblets with his left. 
You can see him now in every city of the world, playing 
the polished, oily sanctimonious hypocrite; himself 
and his scheming chums, laughing in their sleeves at 
midnight game and banquet. boards, at the credulity of 
the sheep they have sheared, the geese they have 
plucked and the calves they have skinned. 

Hark! the clock in the tall tower has just struck 
one ; its sonorous, ponderous tongue reverberating over 
the sleeping city like the wail of a lost angel. Y7hat 
a time for contemplation! These crooked streets, 
stores, taverns, clubs and homes now almost silent of 
human life, a few hours since were teeming with the 
chatter of shop-keepers, the music of strolling bands 
and theatrical orchestras, the story and songs of club 
men, the rattle of the dice box; the maudlin argument 
of the drunkard, the sneaking footsteps of the robber 
and the sharp shot of the assassin as he flew away from 
the precinct of his fallen victim, 

Those poor creatures that now make their beds in 
doorways, cellars, under carts, or in store boxes, are 
endeavoring to rest their weary hearts on the lower 
round of the human ladder, and are far more miser- 
able than the inmates of Newgate or Portland, who at 
least have shelter and food provided by the State 
They have known happier days, and if you will only 
listen to their tale of woe your heart, although hard 
and proud, may melt at the recital of their misfortunes, 



London, lis Guilt and Glory. 125 

" Teach me to feel another's woe, 
To hide the faults I see, 
That mercy I to others show, 
That mercy show to me." 

^ ■9|c ■^p 5p ■§!& ^ 

Ah sir, said the poor wretch, Dan Derange, who 
quoted this couplet, if you only knew Avhat I have 
suffered for my friends and country, you would have 
more charity for my ragged, forlorn and partially in- 
ebriated condition. 

Tbuth. Tell me your history. 

I was born on the estate of Lord Lucan, near Man- 
chester, my father being an old retired soldier, the 
game-keeper and general manager of the domain. I 
was an only son and had but one sister, " Bet" two 
years younger than myself. We went to the parish 
school and passed through the rudiments of a good 
English education. At the age of seventeen I was sent 
by the influence of Lord Lucan to Oxford, where I 
soon took a stand as a boy of rare "genius." That's 
what they said about me, although I have since learn- 
ed to my sad experience, that a " genius " is another 
man's amusing fool, his own worst enemy, fed by the 
flattering food of inordinate vanity and a probable 
subject for suicide and the potter's field. 

At the age of twenty-one I took the degree of A. 
B. and M. A., secured a premium of twenty pounds for 
excellence in elocution, and carried away the gold 
medal for poetry, even in a class of thirty-three. My 
schoolmates and the professors predicted for me a career 
of great reuown, and whether I should pursue the pro- 



126 Nazcr: a Zi<j-zag Philosophy. 

fession of medicine, divinity or law, was the only quan- 
dary with my father and Lord Lucau my patron and 
friend. 

For myself to tell the truth, I did not wish to enter 
into any of these pursuits, although I had a prede- 
liction for the law, knowing as I did that, that profes- 
sion was the one, above all others, that prospered at 
the expense of contention, jealousy hate and misfor- 
tune, and I knev/ that these elements were prevalent 
and almost universal in the ranks of mankind. Yet 
after all, I said to my own soul, Dan, whatever you do 
or whatever you may become, don't play the civil or 
sanctimonious hypocrite. You will not succeed in a 
" respectable " or financial way as others see it, but 
you can at least respect your own failings, because 
they are of the blood and as honest as nature. 

After roaming about among neighboring friends 
for a year, keeping up the convivial habits I contracted 
in college and getting into a few scrapes and brawls 
around the ale-houses, taverns and clubs of London, 
I finally in a fit of remorse and almost despair enlisted 
in the " Blues," and was shipped off with the regi- 
ment to Bombay and Calcutta, India. 

I wrote the following to my dear, old, indulgent 
father, who thought that the sun rose and set around 
my wandering footsteps, and that even the position of 
prime minister would not be too great for a man of my 
"genius" to occupy and adorn: 

" Your wayward and erratic son has this day enlisted 
in the 'Blues' and ere this note reaches you I will be 



Loudon, Ifs Guilt avd Glorij. 127 

on the bounding billows of the oeeau, for Bombay, 
India. Forgive this rash act, give my best friendship to 
Lord Lucan and my everlasting love to my sweet sister 
" Bet;" and over my mother's grave plant, at once, the 
inclosed white rose root that it may bloom and ex- 
hale its sweetness towards her home in heaven, and 
also be a slight remembrance of the love of your way- 
ward son, Dan.*' 

For the term of nearly five years, I marched, 
camped and fought from the sea to the plains, jungles 
and mountains of India, with both man and beast. My 
rashness and hair-breadth escapes was the common talk 
of the regiment and brigade; and even my perilous 
and peculiar deeds found praise in public orders, and 
I was awarded medals for gallantry by the hand of 
vice royalty itself. Promotion came in regular con- 
tinuous grades, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, and 
finally a captaincy for meritorious gallantry at the ford 
of the upper Ganges, when I was the first man to 
cross the river in face of the enemy, tie a rope to a 
tree and make it feasible to ferry over the artillery 
on rafts. At this fight I was shot in the left upper 
arm, and lay in hospital a month. When I recovered, 
I took command of my company and participated in 
the storming of a fort near Lucknow. Here I was 
shot in the right leg below the knee and was again 
laid up in hospital for two months. 

As soon as I could travel I requested to be sent to 
my regiment, serving near the head waters of the 
Indus and within the plague district bordering on the 
Ganges, It was said to be sure d'3aili to venture iu- 



128 Nazer: a 2ig-z(i(j Philosophy. 

side the plague range, and those who had the misfor- 
tune to be stationed in those terrible regions of death 
were left without succor by those even of their com- 
rades, who fled from the scourge at the first simoon 
of the black disease, and barely escaped the sorrowful 
fate that beset thousands of the bravest British soldiers. 

I_was dissuaded from going by the hospital surgeon, 
and even the commander of the district at Delhi for- 
bade anyone from coming out or going into the plague 
country, a very charnel house of death. But, the very 
danger and the forbidding orders were enough to in- 
duce me to try and make my way to my own command 
at all hazards. Through the connivance of an old 
official friend, I finally secured the privilege of carry- 
ing dispatches to the commander of the garrison, in 
the plague district. I procured a fine, fleet horse, se- 
cured ten days cooked provisions, strapped it to my 
noble steed, and as the sun rose over the Oriental 
spires of Delhi, I rode away, alone, on my perilous 
journey to the land of death. 

Through field, and valleys, over hills and streams, 
forest and jungle, I kept my course, and after twelve 
days of the most excruciating hardship in sun, rain, 
wind and sand storm, I drew up at the headquarters of 
the garrison, where the cross of St. George and the 
Union Jack floated from the large government house, 
surrounded by long barracks, that had more the 
appearance of mammoth coffins than habitations of 
living men. 

At this same place in the past, Clive, Lovelace^ 



London, Its Guilt and Glory. 129 

Havelock, Cartigan, Hastings, Hamilton, Peel, Rag- 
lan, Ripon and a long line of civil and militaiy men 
of England, wrought out tlie conquest of India, through 
the real heroes of the army, and molded a land of 
heathens and pagans into the lights and highways of 
Christianity. 

The commander of the garrison was delighted, and 
yet surprised to see me. But when I delivered my 
dispatches and he read them, a flush of pride came 
over his weather-beaten face and he extended his hand 
to welcome me to the feast of death that was being 
enacted that very day under the rafters of the long 
and broad cavelry school adjacent to the fort. An or- 
derly put up my horse, and as the sun was dipping 
behind the Himalaya mountains, flooding the vale of 
Cashmere with its torrid rays, I was ushered into the 
cavalry building where I beheld a sight that would 
chill and freeze a heart even stronger and more 
desperate than my own. Gathered about an ob- 
long, half circle table sat in ghost-like array, 
nearly a thousand men, the remnant of a division 
of ten thousand that had passed over the river 
of time by the unerring weapon of the .black 
plague. The table was loaded down with all kinds of 
good army provisions, and even vegetables from the 
garrison gardens were plentiful. At each man's plate 
was placed a bottle of brandy, a bottle of porter, a bot- 
tle of ale and a stone jug of water. I took a seat on 
the left of the commander, after he had introduced me 
to the assembled soldiers. There were but a few of 
9 



130 Nazcr: a Zig-zatj Philosophy. 

"Blues" that I recognized, the most of the men being- 
of other regiments, who had thus far escaped the 
scythe of the great destroyer. 

The General read to them the dispatches I had 
brought him from Delhi. It was enough to blot out 
all hope of aid from the rear and convince all present 
that the angel of despair had settled over them with 
his black wings, never more to permit a ray of hope to 
enter their souls. 

The dispatch said, General: The Bearer Captain 
Dan Derange, has sacrificed his own life, in communi- 
cating from me to you the sad but fearful intelligence 
that you and your men cannot be relieved from duty 
at your present post, and you must hurrah for the flag 
of Old Albion, and die like men! 

Signed, Howard, 

Governor of India. 

A loud cheer rang through the building, and the 
walls and rafters seemed to echo back the laughing 
wail of these patriotic men. 

When the cheering ceased, the General requested 
Captain Dowling, a gallent officer and brilliant poet, to 
sing a song and he immediately improvised. 

THE SONG OF THE DYING. 

It ran, as I remember, as follows, and is the most 
appropriate song that has ever been composed under all 
the circumstances surrounding a death feast. 

We meet, 'neath the sounding rafter, 
And the walls arouiul are bare; 



London. Its Guilt and Glory. 131 

As they echo the peals of lau.cjhter 

It seems that the dead are there; 
But stand to your glasses, steady, 

We drink to our comrades eyes; 
Quaff a cup to the dead already, 

And hurrah for the next that dies. 

Time was when we frowned at others, 

We thought we were wiser then; 
Ha! Ha! let those think of mothers 

Who hope to see them again. 
No, stand to your glasses, steady, 

The thoughtless are here the wise. 
A cup to the dead already. 

Hurrah for the next that dies. 

There's many a hand that's shaking. 

There's many a cheek that's sunk, 
But soon, though our hearts arc breaking 

They'll burn with the wine we've drunk; 
So stand to your glasses, steady, 

'Tis here the revival lies. 
A mug to the dead already 

And hurrah for the next that dies. 

Who dreads to the dust returning? 

Who shrinks from the sable shore? 
Where the high and haughty yearning 

Of the soul shall sting no more; 
Ho! stand to your glasses, steady 

TMs world is a world of lies. 
A cup for the dead already 

Hurrah for the next that dies. 

Cut off from the land that bore us, 

Betrayed by the land we find, 
Where the brightest has gone before us 

And the dullest remain behind; 



132 Nazer: a Zig-zag PJiilosophy. 

Stand, stand to your glasses, steady 

'Tis all we have left to prize, 
A cup to the dead already 

And hurrah for the next that dies. 

As the last notes o£ this heroic song died away the 
men sank in their seats, and scores of them seemed to 
be taken with the cramps and unusual contortions, 
their faces turning as black as ink, their eyes glaring 
in wild delirium and sinking in tlie arms of death, 
where they sat. As soon as a man breathed his last 
the surgeon and hospital corps were ready to carry 
him out to the long deep pit where he was laid away 
for ever without ceremony. 

The banquet lasted three days after my arrival, and 
when I departed, there were only three living mortals 
left out of the whole garrison that originally compris- 
ed ten thousand men. And the fate of this garrison 
was only a counterpart of others through India. Why 
I was saved I know not, unless it was that as I finished 
one bottle of brandy I called for another, and in the 
three days I must have consumed thirty bottles in my 
utter recklessness, and defiance of death. While he 
shook his bony fingers at me in the cold, pale and 
black visages of my conpanions, I laughed at his butch- 
eries and scorned his momentary mercy. 

Surgeon Howard, of the Buffs, Corporal Trigg, of 
the Artillery, and Sergeant Nelson, of the Dragoons, ac- 
companied me in my return to Delhi. As we turned 
our backs on the desolated buildings with a train of 
starving, wailing dogs at our heels, and clumps of dead 



London, lis Giiili and Glorij. 133 

horses everywhere, with the British flag lazily flapping 
in the warm wind over the molderiug remains of our 
gallant comrades, our hearts sunk within us. As Ave 
took a last long and lingering look at the melancholy 
scene, we beheld in each others eyes the streaming 
language of tears, eloquent with the remembrance of 
what might have been. 

We had only been on the road one day, when the 
surgeon, all of a sudden, turned black, fell off his horse 
and died with a faint groan. Two days later the ser- 
geant died, and the day before I arrived at the capital, 
the poor corporal, while taking our morning rations at 
a spring by the wayside, began to shiver, extended his 
hand, said " good-bye," and died. 

AVhen I reported to headquarters the fate of th(5 
devoted garrison, there was consternation in the city; 
and a loud wail went up from the well-spring of Britioh 
hearts, that even to this day can be heard echoing 
through the ranks of the brave and true who die at 
their post of duty rather than desert country, home and 
honor. 

I was the lion of Delhi for weeks and months, and 
although but a nucleus of my regiment remained, I 
wished to wait for its recruiting season. I was given 
a commission to fill up the depleted ranks. But my 
old major, Kelly by name, was terribl}^ affronted at my. 
taking the glory away from himself. One night in a 
drinking bout, I upbraided the major for sneaking away 
from our command when the plague began, although 
lie claimed to have orders to report at the capital for 



134 Nazer: a Zig-za(j Philosophy. 

some purpose. In tlie quarrel lie drew a knife, rushed 
at me like a tiger, but ere he could do his murderous 
work, I sent a bullet through his brain and landed him 
on the shores of eternity. 

I was arrested, tried by court martial for murder, 
and condemned to be shot. The major was of a very 
influential family, and the general commanding the 
district, was his distant relative. I had no one, as I 
thought, to speak in my behalf, and so my trial was 
short, sharp and decisive. However my sad con- 
demnation was brought to the ears of the crown by 
Lord Lucan, my old Manchester patron; and after 
a deal of red tape and a Jiunt for my record as a brave 
soldier, my sentence was commuted to one year's work 
on the fortifications with ball and chain, and then 
dismissal from the service. This Avas not quite as bad 
as being shot down like a dog, for killing a coward in 
self-defense; but really the humiliation of attaching a 
ball and chain to my leg and working me before the 
public in that plight was a daily death to my innate 
pride, and I can assure you, that a shot through the 
heart on the field of battle would have been a thousand 
fold preferable. 

My year of penal servitude expired in due course 
and I was turned out into the world almost naked and 
penniless. I drifted down to Bombay by easy stages, 
working my way through the harvest fields, and doing 
what I could to procure food and shelter. In the 
course of a few weeks I arrived in tlie city, and found 
about the taverns and ale-houses some of the men who 



London, Its GuiV and Glory. 135 

liad been with me in the "Blues." They had served 
out their time and like all adventurers were spending 
their back pay like lords, not caring what to-morrow 
might bring forth, knowing that when all else failed, 
they could ship as common sailors or re-enlist as vet- 
eran soldiers. 

The few pounds I had in my pocket were soon spent 
vieing with old comrades in the vain effort of keeping 
up a bold, liberal front in the shadow of impecun- 
iosity and the gloom of despair. If you have ever 
been in a foreign land without a penn}^ in your pocket 
or a real friend, you may imagine my situation and 
sympathize with my misfortunes. 

One morning as the rays of the hot sun rose over 
the shambling shanties and pretentious mansions of 
Bombay I strolled down to the docks, v>diere ships and 
flags of all nations floated on the bounding swells of 
the Arabian sea, thrown on the shore from the rolling 
billows of the Indian ocean. 

I was dry, hungry and sad, and gazing along the 
harbor for some outlet to my misery, I beheld a fine 
ship flying the Union Jack, and seemingly anxious, 
from the flap of her sails to escape from her moorings 
and swing away into her natural element. I rushed 
up the gang-plank, and enquired for the officer on 
duty. The first mate came to the forecastle and in- 
quired my business and desire. I told him trulj', in 
short terms, my condition and offered niyself as a com- 
mon sailor to perform any duty that ho might requir(\ 
He turned about for a few moments, consulted with 



130 Nazer: a Zig-zag Ph'dosopliy. 

another officer and ordered me to come aboard. I did 
so, and soon after signed some kind of a contract and 
was then assigned to a mess of three other men where 
I found plenty of food, and was shown to a berth Avliere 
I might repose when ofp duty 

The ship Avas freighted with tea, spices, gold, silver 
and rare jewels froin the rich mines of India. It was 
bound for London, had but five passengers and twenty- 
five of a crew, thirty human- beings in all, including 
myself. In the evening a sharp wind blew from the 
shore, the tide arose with imperceptible, mammoth 
volume, and as the stars shone out in myriad battal- 
ions, we slipped our cable, hoisted our anchor and 
amid the laboring sound of pulleys, tackles, ropes 
and shifting sails, commingled with the rhythmic 
voices of old Jack Tars, we bore away to the rolling 
waves of the Indian ocean and the Mediterranean. 

We were only three days out when my bad luck 
beofan asrain. The second mate, who was a natural 
bruto, and ignorant of all things save those included 
in seafaring life, took a particular aversion to me. 
Perhaps the cause was my superiority in telling a 
story, when off duty, reciting a poem, or singing a 
song, neither of which he could do. At least I felt 
his enmity on all occasions when he happened to com- 
mand my watch. The night of the third day, before 
dawn I was called on watch, and as I did double duty 
the evening before in a sharp gale, I was tired and 
slow in getting out of my bunk. When I came on 
deck, he jj^ave a iirowling curse like the roar of a liun- 



London, Its Guilt and Glorij. 137 

gry bear, and at the same time knocked me with his 
fist against tlie foremast and almost tumbled me down 
the hatchway all in the presence of my mess -mates. 
This was too much for my British blood. I arose as 
soon as my dizzy condition would permit, grabbed a 
a convenient marlin spike and gave him a blow over 
the head and shoulder that sent him spinning and 
sprawling on the slippery deck. 

The captain happened to be passing, and by his 
orders I was put in irons, rushed below into a black hole 
where I remained without food, water or light, for 
twenty-four hours. The trap to this airless hole was 
finally opened and more dead than alive I was taken 
to the main mast, where a brute was ordered to tie 
me up and give me thirty- nine lashes on the bare back 
for mutiny. 

The sun like a ball of fire v\^as rising out of its 
ocean bath, the sea skulls were wheelin<2r their flight in 
mid air, the stormy petrels were rocking on the foamy 
waves, the porpoises were showing their shining backs 
in sportive mood through their liquid world, and all 
nature seemed to be at peace and rest but me. 

As the whiz of the lash warned me of the impend- 
ing blow,- I shuddered at the thought of my deep 
humiliation and shame; but only three of the thirty- 
nine lashes had scarred my back, when the man aloft 
shouted "ship a-hoy!" and soon after a black hull 
bearing a black flag flew towards us, and a cannon sliot 
from the pirate vessel brought about the crew of the 
"Lady Jane," who surrendered at will, without a fight. 



138 Nnzer: a Zig-zarj Philosophy. 

to the wild marauders of the sea. Bearded, booted, 
armed with pistols and cutlasses, the pirates at the 
prompt orders of their chief grappled the merchant- 
man, rushed aboard, collared the captain and purser 
and demanded the keys of the trsasure box. 

Such a trembling lot of cowardly ojfificers and men 
I never saw. The fellow who had the lash raised over 
me fainted from absolute fright and I can say, I 
hope without egotism, that I was the only man of the 
crew perfectly indifferent and fearless of the well- 
knov/n consequence of being captured on the high seas 
by a band of robbing and murdering pirates. On gen- 
eral principles there is only one fate left to the 
victims of piracy and that is to " walk the plank," 

Inside of twenty minutes the pirates had secured 
all the portable valuables and transferred them to 
to their sharp, rakish cruiser A plank was then 
launched over the stern of the " Lady Jane,"' secured 
and fastened tightly to the guards, and one by one, 
down to the captain, who went last, the twenty -nine 
men were forced at the point of cutlasses to walk over 
the extended plank, and drop forever into the hungry 
arms of the surging sea. 

A party of the pirates with axes then rushed up lo 
the hatchway where I was still tied and bleeding from 
the recent blows of the lash. They drew up Avith 
great astonishment at my situation. A dozen of them 
W3nt below to scuttle the ship while the chief de- 
iT^aiided my name, nation, and the cause of my predic- 
ament. I told him in very b.rief language, all. He 



London, lis Gnltf (tnd Glorij. 139 

ordered another party to lower the long-boat at once, 
fill it with provisions niul water, and throw in a few 
pieces of bed clothes and sail, and a couple of oars, all 
of which was done in five minutes. I was then untied, 
rushed overboard into the boat, thrown a handful of 
gold coins and pushed away, alone on the wide, wide 
sea, left to the mercy of the wind and waves. As I 
slowly drifted away from the ill fated " Lady Jane'' I 
could see her settle and lurch between the rolling 
billows ; and as the bright sun swept over the sea in 
all his glory, its rays seemed to linger brighter than 
ever on the glittering folds of the Union Jack as it 
sank in the waves to rise no more. All I could see of 
the pirate ship Avas a black speck in the distant hori- 
zon, flitting away to the south like a hungry vulture 
in pursuit of prey. 

As soon as I could collect my thoughts, recover 
from my dazed condition and take in the situation, I 
set about to ease the pain that the lash had inflicted. 
Bathing my back with water and rubbing on some 
olive oil that I fortunately found among the provisions 
the pirates had tumbled into the boat ; I soon felt relief 
and realized the whole enormity of the recent events 
as well as the providential circumstances that had evi- 
dently saved my life, the only survivor of that whole 
crew who went down to death through the cupidity and 
and cruelty of their fellow men. 

"God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform, 
He plants his footsteps in the sea 
And rides upon the storm." 



id-0 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

You can see that there is a divinity somewhere 
that molds every mortal life and it is no use trying to 
force any particiilar pleasure or evade any impending 
pain. All we can do is to live right along, try for the 
best, be not elated by fleeting joy nor depressed by 
corroding sorrow. I am sure that my forlorn and hu- 
miliating situation, tied to the mast and bleeding for 
striking a tyrant who cruelly abused me, was the real 
cause of finding mercy, even in the black heart and 
eyes of the pirate chief, who wrought justice at least in 
my case, whatever may be thought of his forcing the 
captain and crew to "walk the plank." 

For seven days and nights I was buffeted about by 
every breeze without seeing a sail or sighting land. 
My provisions were exhausted and the small keg of 
water had been emj)tied for two days. I was nearly 
crazed with thirst and were it not for occasional heavy 
showers, partly caught in the open keg and a, spread 
piece of sail, I should surely have expired in the boat 
or thrown myself into the sea in a fit of insane despe- 
ration. 

On the evening of the seventh day I could clearly 
perceive that the boat Avas caught in a strong current 
of some kind and hurried along at a rapid rate. 
Peering to the east I imagined that land could be 
seen and then again the low dark specks would look 
like clouds floating on the surface of the sea. But 
suddenly the boat took a turn to the right, proceeded 
faster than ever, wheji just as the sun was sinking in 
the molten sea I beheld a bold head-land on the coast 



London, lis Guilt and Glory. 141 

of Africa Avaslied by the gulf of Edeu, through which 
I had gone to India with the "Blues." 

As I neared the shore, the rolling waves seemed to 
grow higher and sound louder in their mad wail to the 
beetlinor blufPs, and I knew that now or never I must 
prepare for the worst and soon take my chances with 
the seething surf and dangerous rocks that lay hidden 
in ray course. When within fifty yards of the shore, 
and as I thought free from danger, the boat struck a 
rock, whirled about in wild fury and tlire^v me into the 
sea as if I had been a leaf in a cyclone. I sank, but 
in a moment rose to the surface, and ere I can tell it 
the damaged boat and myself were safely stranded on 
the beach out of the cruel clasping of the heartless 
ocean. 

As soon as I could get my breath I secured the 
boat, the oars, a hatchet and an ax, the wet bed clothes, 
sails, kegs, cups, pots and scattered cooking utensils, 
ropes and chairs, and luckily a bag of wheat tliat liad 
been placed under the bow of the boat by some un- 
known hand for some mysterious purpose. 

It was now quite dark and I could do nothing but 
remain where I was for the night, and await the devel- 
opments that to-morrow might bring forth. I took the 
hatchet, walked up the hill a short distance cut off a 
number of bending branches for a bed. When I 
threw my load of fragrant boughs in the boat, I heard 
something rattle and feeling about found a number of 
cream nuts that came to my hungry heart as the last 
ray of liope to the condemned. I broke the shell of 



142 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

the nuts on the rocks, and soon appeased, to some ex- 
tent, the aching void of my lank stomach. But all 
through that weary night I was tortured Avitli thirst 
and slept very little, a hot fever .setting in just as the 
first flashes of day lit up the blue and green surface of 
the morning sea. I must find water or surely die. 
In a frantic frame of mind I grabbed the hatchet rush- 
ed along the shore over rocks, trailing vines and at 
last plunged into a dark deep ravine, where I heard 
the sweet sound of a waterfall, music to my ears more 
delicious and melodious than all the symphonies or 
chants of Sappho, Beethoven or Mendelssohn. I rushed 
along like a wild man of the mountain, until I reached 
the pure blue stream of fresh Water, seeming to leap 
out of the rocky face of a granite boulder that rose high 
into the morning air at the ravine. I lay beneath the 
spray for an hour, and at short intervals, assuaged my 
aching thirst. I felt the fever depart after I had 
bathed in the rushing stream, and the angel of hope 
once more hovered over my wandering footsteps, urging 
me to escape from the toils that seemed to environ me 
worse than the serpents around the heads of the Furies. 
Or returning to the boat, I saw tracks in the sand, 
that while not exactly the imprint of human feet bore 
a strong resemblance thereto. I followed the trace 
along the winding rugged beach until the tracks were 
lost in the dense leaves, vines and wild flowers tliat 
carpeted the way. Tropical fruits and nuts were 
ripening on every branch, and berries of rare hue 
and curious form filled the forest with their fadin«r 



London., Us Guilt and Glory. 143 

fragrance. Deer, elk, antelopes, chimpanzee monkeys, 
l)al)oous, panthers, leopards and the man-like gorilla, 
^vere seen, scared, and evaded in my exploration of the 
land that sheltered an unfortunate shipwrecked exile. 

The mangrove, the mimosa and acacia, from which 
gum arable is obtained, could be seen growing over 
the sloping hills and alluvial valleys. A wild date 
palm was observed occasionally, as well as the papyrus, 
while the white and blue lotus appeared at rare inter- 
vals along the lazy lagoons in the bottom lands, and 
offered their fabled fruit and bright petals in seeming 
enticement of luring me from the land of my bii-th 
and causing me to forget all the sweet memories of 
dear old Albion. 

Parrots and paroquets as well as other birds of 
rare and dazzling plumage, chattered and sang, 
and monkeys of all grades sprang from every bough. 
The variegated forest with its wealth of luxuriant vege- 
tation, seemed a grand orchestra or band of animated 
nature, and I, the only leader of my subordinate 
friends, who carried the chorus. 

After v/alking about the island for the most part of 
the day, and observing everything in my course, I at 
last, near sunset, rounded the circle of my domain, 
and came in sight of the boat just as I left it. At one 
poijit of the island I could easily see across to Avhat 
seemed the mainland, my high promontory, having 
been cut off in antediluvian years, perhaps by the ac- 
tion of the ocean stealing through some secret rivu- 



144 Ndzcr: (I Zici-zdfi Philosonhij. 

let, or else lieaved up by volcanic force from tlie 
profound depths of dame Nature. 

I considered the island to be about ten miles in cir- 
cumference and three or foar across, I had not had the 
courage as yet to investigate the interior, or ascertain 
the nature of the inhabitants that mie:lit be found in 
this Terra incognita. 

In my rambles I secured all the fruit and nuts I 
could carry, and after filling my keg at the v\'aterLall 
near by, I partook of a hearty supper, fixed one of the 
sails over the boat for an awning, and lay down to 
slumber away the sad remembrance of the past. I 
was somewhat uneasy to consent to sleep, without pro- 
tecting myself against the prowling wild animals that 
occasionally gave voice to their hungry rage. I 
thought of building a fire to keep off the marauders, 
and then again, this light might betray my presence 
to gorillas or human savages, more murderous than 
even the panthers and leopards that wandered in the 
woods, and besides, where v/ould I get the material to 
strike up a fire? 

Between hope and fear, I finally fell fast asleep 
and did not awake until the hot sun was half-way 
up the sky and the warning pains of hunger im- 
pelled me to look about for some substantial food 
to appease my appetite. In arousing from my sleep 
and stretching out at full length at the stern of the 
boat, I kicked open a kind of trap door that I had not 
perceived before, and lo! and behold! I hauled there- 
from a black tin can, a long sheet-iron box, an axe, a 



LoikIou, Its Guilt and Glory. 145 

rusty blmiclerbus and a knife that might have done 
good service in shedding pagan blood, when Peter 
the hermit, led his crusade for the redemption of 
the tomb of Christ. 

My eyes expanded with delight, and as I had al- 
ways believed in destiny and an overruling Provi- 
dence, I fell on my knees and offered up to the God 
of day and night my most fervent prayer of thanks- 
giving. I opened the black can and found it to be a 
kind of grayish powder. Breaking the long iron box, 
I found a brace of flint-lock pistols, a box of leaden 
bullets, a bundle of rags and a kind of oakum, to be 
used, no doubt, for wadding the j&rearms. The day- 
light of liberty and salvation now began to rise trium- 
phant in my heart and the winding ways of dear old 
London, v^ith its joys and sorrows, arose before me 
like realized visions of cherished hopes. 

In going for fresh water I accidentally stumbled on 
a young gazelle that was caught in a crevice of a rock, 
moaning for assistance. I at once saw a fine pot of 
fresh meat and boiled wheat in sight. 1 ran to dis- 
patch the spotted creature, but just ,is I had raised a 
huge sun-dried club to kill the crying animal, it threw 
up its round, luminous eyes into my face, and like a 
flash my own situation, lashed to tlie mast, arose before 
me, when I dropped the club, extricated the poor thing 
from her perilous position and turned it loose in the 
forest. I continued to the spring, but instead of fly- 
ing away, the young fawn-like creature followed be- 
hind mo like a dog that knew and loved its master. 
10 



146 Ndzcr: a Zig-zag P]iilosoj)hy. 

When I readied tlie boat I gave the gazelle, which 
I named " Bet " in honor of my sister, a handful of 
wheat, some ripe fruit, nuts and berries. It hung 
around me like a kitten, and 1 can tell you sincerely, 
sir, that the companionship I had with "Bet" on the 
island, afforded me more real genuine joy than any I 
had ever experienced with her sex, of the human kind, 
in any land or clime. Wherever I went she went, 
and even in exploring the interior of my domain, 
which I frequently did, when meeting with herds 
of her own kind she never scampered away, dis- 
played any disposition to flirt with her mates, or de- 
sert the hand that relieved her in the gloom of adver- 
sity. I wish I could say as much for some of her 
sister animals of the human race. At meals she would 
sit on a log beside the boat and cheer me with her 
bright eyes and symmetrical form, while I partook of 
the feast of the forest. But, every time I took a 
mouthful I, in turn, extended one to her, and she 
licked my hand in gracious thankfulness for the kind- 
ness and generosity I displayed to a dumb animal. 
The bowing, turning and twisting of her head, the ex- 
tended fore feet, the modulated yawns, sharp whistles 
and speaking eyes told me as plain as language could 
utter, " Oh! my dear Dan, you have been the generous 
preserver of my life, when my body was needed for 
your strength and preservation. You have acted the 
God-like being, and not like those gorillas and black 
devils that frequently come here to kill my friends and 
relatives, and then turn to and devour themselves. 



London, Its Git ill and Glory. 147 

Although young, yet I have seen some of their can- 
nibal feasts that would make your blood run cold. 
But, my darling Dan, I could express to you my love 
for years, for the mercy you extended to me in the 
vale of death." 

" Bet " would run on this way for hours and I 
would reply to the best of my ability, telling her that 
it was no particular merit in a man to do his duty as 
he saw it, and that after all, the only credit I ever got 
in life was the satisfaction that a pure conscience 
brought, when even the bleak Avorld rebuked and per- 
secuted me without good cause or common sense. 

When I lay do^vn in my boat house at night, "Bet" 
would snuggle up by my side with her head over the 
guards, ears erect, and eyes opened wide, to see and 
hear everything. She would occasionally turn about 
to know if I slept, and if she found me awake and 
restless, would open her mouth, yawn, and say " Dan, 
go to sleep, I'll protect you to the last drop of blood 
in my body! " 

At this assurance of my beautiful companion, I 
turned over on my right side, sent a sigh of regret for 
the absence of her namesake "Bet" across the seas, 
and sunk into the realm of sweet slumber. Once again 
I was leading my company into battle, charging the 
desperate foe, or wounded on the field where the life 
blood of myself and comrades ebbed away and the 
angel of death hovei'ed over us. 

In this forlorn position, the dream of the German 



148 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

soldier of his sister at Bingen on the Ehine came over 
my wandering brain. 

Tell my sister not to weep for me and sob with drooping head, 

When the troops are marching home again with glad and gallant tread, 

But to look upon them proudly with a calm and steadfast eye, 

For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die. 

And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name, 

To listen to him kindly without regret or shame, 

And to hang the old sword in its place, my father's sword and mine, 

For the honor of old Bingen, dear Bingen on the Rhine. 

And, thus on the heights of dreamland, would 
visions of delicious memories meander through my 
burning brain, while the croAvding columns of past 
events wheeled into line before me, as plain as the 
stars that glitter in Italian skies, 

I had scoured the island in every direction, killed 
wild game in abundance, but as yet had not seen the 
footprints of man. There were two tribes of gorillas 
living on my domain, one the large black, fierce kind 
at the southern end in the tangled rolling bottom lands, 
while a tribe of these creatures, almost white, made 
their homes in the northern part of the island, amid 
rocks and huge trees that were almost inaccessible. 

When ever I came in sight the black tribe would 
stand with huge clubs or young trees in their hands, 
erect and seemingly ready for battle, but a shot from 
my blunderbuss, would immediately put them to flight 
and if I happened to wound any of them, as I did, even 
at long range, on several occasions, they would bear off 
their comrade to the interminable swamps and under- 
brush, thus preventing me from knowing the real 



London, Its Guilt and Glory. 149 

nature of the creatures who were joint occupants of 
the island. 

In climbing a mountain crag at the northern end of 
the Island, that overhung the roaring sea at its base, 
in search of a spot where I could display a sail or flag 
of distress for the eye of any passing mariner, I sud- 
denly came upon a low brush hut occupied by a family 
of white gorillas. Four inmates eating nuts and fruit 
were presented to my view. The largest tore down the 
hut in his effort to depart, carrying with him a half 
grown gorrilla. They looked so much like human 
beings that I did not have the heart to shoot, and I al- 
lowed the first two to get away. But I sprang in front 
of the smaller one that had a baby gorilla in her 
arms, and raised my gun to strike her down, when a 
plaintive cry, more like the voice of a human being, 
implored me for mercy, and the little fellow with his 
sharp, black eyes peered at me in wild amazement from 
beneath his mother's arm. The female was covered 
Avith long white hair, as fine as that of the cashmere 
goat; and the little, wild, baby boy, as he might be 
called, had a suit of short fuzzy hair almost as fine as 
swan's-down. " Bet," who stood at my heels ^looked 
on with wonder in her eyes, at every movement I 
made ; she would keep in my rear, seemingly astonished 
at my audacity in confronting an enemy that had kill- 
ed and devoured thousands of her timid and delicate 
race in the countless past. 

I extended some fruit to the mother gorilla, when 
she drew back with a tremblinof look. 1 then offered her 



150 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

some broken cream nuts which I drew from my pocket, 
and while she partially extended her left, slender hand, 
I could see that she was ready to strike with her right, 
the one that supported her baby boy. After a deal of 
advancing, backing, pulling and coaxing, she finally 
took the fruit and nuts from my hand, and in the 
course of a couple of hours I was feeding little " Dan," 
whom I christened, in honor of your humble servant. 
I named the mother " Nell," in honor of a wild 
" flame " I once had for a charmer while attending 
school at Oxford. 

After hoisting my flag of distress on a dead branch 
that extended over the cliff, I took the hand of "Nell," 
and carried little " Dan " in my arms down the decliv- 
ity to my modest quarters in the boat. I then partook 
of a light supper, sharing it with my new family, who 
were not quite as happy as some families I have seen. 
When the stars shown out in all their hot splendor, I 
tied Nell with a chain at ihe stern of the boat, and Bet 
remained by my side at the bow. I soon was in deep 
slumber, and did not awake until broad daylight. It 
is ten to one that Nell, Dan and Bet did not sleep 
much that night as their forced acquaintance was not 
conducive to ease or friendship. I have noticed even 
in human beings, that where there is a disparity in 
blood or station there cannot be any lasting friendship, 
and although my presence and control had a seeming 
restraint, it did not mollify much the natural emnity 
existing between the gorilla and gazelle. 

After I had finished a breakfast of nuts and fruit 



London, Ifs Guilt and Glory. 151 

and some boiled wheat, I heard a terrible yell or bar- 
barous chant, over the mountain that overhung my 
marine residence. I loaded up my flint lock blunder- 
bus and pistols, and sallied forth in search of the cause 
of the fearful howls. After scaling the mountain top 
and proceeding about a mile to the east, I could see a 
spire of curling smoke rising over a small stream that 
flowed through the tangled under glades of a deep 
valley leading to the mainland. 

Feeling assured that some human agency started 
the smoke, I proceeded cautiously along the valley 
until I came to a beetling bluff, from which I beheld a 
sight that made my blood run cold, and the marrow in 
my v^-y bones to congeal with fright and horror. 
Around a hot, blazing fire I saw and counted nine large 
black, naked savages, dancing the cannibal can-can in 
celebration of the feast they had already made on a 
couple of victims, while two otlier human beings were 
tied to a tree near the fire ready to be killed and 
roasted like their companions whose bones lay on the 
ground before them. I concluded to do or die right 
there and forfeit my own life to save my fellow beings. 
I cautiously crept up through the under-brush within 
a hundred yards of the black devils who were still 
yelling and dancing abou.t their victims and drinking 
something out of shining skulls. There was one black 
cannibal that seemed to be the leader of the death chant 
and who was seven feet tall if an inch. 

In one of his mad gyrations, leading his infernal 
comrades around the two remaining victims, I took a 



152 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosopliy. 

dead aim at his head, and at the sound of my blunder- 
buss I could see him pitch forward into the fire and 
his companions throw up their skulls and run to a 
couple of canoes that swung in the rapid stream near 
by. I at once ran down the stream close to a jutting 
rock where they must pass in their effort to get back 
to the mainland. I waited patiently with loaded pis- 
tols and blunderbuss until they were swept along with 
the rapid current, when I opened on them in rapid suc- 
cession, killing four at the first discharge of my fire- 
arms, and ere I could load again three of the four were 
dashed against some rocks that lay in the stream, their 
canoe upset and they sank to rise no more. Only one 
got away. I immediately hurried back to where the 
intended victims were tied to the tree. They were al- 
most speechless with surprise and fear, not knowing 
whether the enemy they had just escaped was Avorse 
than the war-like one they beheld. I soon made them 
at ease, saw they were white like myself, the victims 
of a shipwreck, who had fallen into the hands of Afri- 
can cannibals. They were originally four in number, 
the captain of a Portuguese vessel, his wife, son and 
daughter. The wife and son had just been roasted 
and eaten, while the father and ten year old girl 
were awaiting their turn to be done up brown, when 
Fate brought my bullets to their timely relief. 

I untied the pair at once, and while they only talked 
a little broken Ernglish it was enough for a perfect un- 
derstanding that we must quit the island as soon as 
possible. In traversing the way back to my boat I 



-London, Its Guilt and Gloy^y. 15S 

passed by the crag over which hung my flag of distress, 
and lo ! hark ! and behold ! a ship hove in sight and ere I 
can tell it a British cruiser flying the Union Jack swung a 
boat over her side and put into a cove about a half 
mile below where my boat was moored. We hurried 
along the shore as quick as possible and after releasing 
Nell, Dan and Bet, my whole family was soon in the 
long boat and making to the providential ship that lay 
away in the surging gulf. Once on board with my 
variety menagerie I felt that peace and safety had come 
at last. A short narative explained all to the captain 
of the cruiser who Avas astonished and gratified that he 
had been the instrument in saving three human beings 
from starvation and death. As the ship bore away 
around the crag where my signal of distress was still 
flying, we could see a number of the white gorillas 
beating their breasts, running along the cliff and set- 
ting up shrill cries that rang over the bounding billows 
like the wild screech of sea birds. Nell endeavored to 
jump over the sides of the vessel and the wail she sent 
up as her relatives, friends and home vanished into the 
glimmering distance was truly pathetic, and made me 
sincerely wish that I had not been the cause of separ- 
ating wife and son from no doubt a loving husband 
and the vernal shades and tropic boAvers that blessed 
their innocent meanderings. 

But the die was cast and Nell and Dan, and even 
my beautiful Bet, were destined for the British museum 
and the curiosity and information of the English peo- 
ple. In a short time the ship landed us safely near the 



154 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

tower on the Thames. I had been away from home 
more than six years and had not heard a word from my 
father or sister. 

After disposing of my menagerie for a hundred 
pounds, I went immediately to my okl home; but, 
alas, I found that my father had died the year after I 
departed for India, my sister Bet, had gone up to Lon- 
don with a rake who promised to marry her, and Lord 
Lucan my patron and friend, had but the year before 
gone to rest in the old churchyard that held the bones 
of my father and mother. 

I turned my back forever on the old homestead, 
crumbling and dilapidated, and proceeded to the grave- 
yard on the neighboring hill to take a last look at the 
sacred spot that entombed tlie dearest friends I ever 
had on earth. A magnificent shaft rose over the re- 
mains of Lord Lucan, while two modest white head- 
stones memorialized the names and virtures of my 
parents. At the foot of each grave there grew a bush 
bearing pure white roses, no doubt the lineal descend- 
ants of those I sent to decorate my mother's grave when 
enlisting in the "Blues," 

As I turned my face towards London through the 
golden shadows of the evening sunset, these lines 
sprang spontaneously into my mind when peering at 

THE OLD HOMESTEAD. 

I gaze on my old ruined homestead today, 
Through the tears of a wild, vanished youth, 

I see the broad porches gone down to decay, 
Where my mother instilled every truth. 



London, lis Guilt and Glory. 155 

The chimney has crumbled away in the blast, 

And the rafters have all tumbled down; 
The hearthstone brings back all the joys of the past 

As the clouds in the west darkly frown. 

The spring at the foot of the hill has gone dry, 

And the apple and plum trees have gone; 
I stand in the gloom as the winds deeply sigh, 

See the ghosts oPmy friends one by one. 

Here my mother and father sleep side by side 

In a nook on the top of the hill; 
Where my heart was as light as the foam on the tide 

When I sauntered about the old mill 

That stood on the banks of the brook down the lane. 

Where it rumbled its musical flow; 
But alas, I shall never play there again, 

As I played in the sweet long ago. 

The wild bird would drum o'er my head on the oak. 

And the gray squirrel chatter his tune, 
But where are the schoolmates whose sports and whose joke 

Thrilled my heart in the play spell at noon. 

Some are "gone o'er the ranges" to sleep in the vale, 

Like myself, some have wandered afar, 
Blown about like a leaf in a withering gale 

Or attuned like a broken guitar. 

By the last ray of sunset I sadly behold 

The old ruined home of my youth. 
Where the jessamine clambered in colors of gold 

And the voices I heard spoke the truth. 

Farewell to the friends and the scenes that I knew 

In the morning of life, bright and fair, 
My heart shall forever commingle with you 

And my spirit shall always be there, 



156 Ndzcr: ((, Zi(j-za() Fhilosophfj. 

And now sir, I have closed my narrative, and soon 
will close a life that was launched with the brightest 
hopes and assured promises. Here to-night, I'm 
weary, sad and absolutely without a penny or friend; 
the wreck of passion, indiscretion and intemperance. 
Where shall I go, what shall I do? what is the end? 
Who cares for the Moneyless Man ? 

How the words of my old college chum, Henry T. 
Stanton of Kentucky, flash through my mind. 

Is there no secret place on the face of the earth, 
Where charity dvvelleth, where virtue has birth, 
Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave, 
Where the poor and the wretched shall ask and receive ? 
Is there no place at all where a knock from the poor 
Will bring a kind angel to open the door ? 
Ah ! search the wide world wherever you can, 
There's no open door for a moneyless man. 

Go, look in yon hall where the chandelier's light 
Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night. 
Where the rich hanging velvet in shadowy fold 
Sweep gracefully down with its trimmings of gold, 
And the mirrors of silver take up and renew 
In long lighted vistas the wildering view ! 
Go there at the banquet and find if you can, 
A welcoming smile for a moneyless man ? 

Go look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire. 
Which gives to the sun his same look of red fire, 
Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within, 
And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin; 
Walk down the long aisle, see the rich and the great 
In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate; 
Walk down in your patches and find if you can 
Who opens a pew to a moneyless man? 



London, Us Guilt and Glory. 157 

Go, look in the banks where mammon has told 
His hundred and thousands in silver and gold; 
Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor, 
Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore. 
Walk up to their counters; ah! there you may stay 
Till your limbs grow old, till your hairs grow gray. 
And you'll find at the banks not one of the clan 
With money to loan to a moneyless man. 

Go, look at yon judge in his dark flowing gown, 
With the scales wherein law weigheth equity down; 
Where he frowns on the weak and smiles on the strong. 
And punishes right while he justifies wrong; 
Where juries their lips to the Bible have laid 
To render a verdict they've already made; 
Go there, in the court room and find if you can 
Any law for the cause of the moneyless man. 

Then go to your hovel — no raven has fed 

The wife who has suffered too long for her bread; 

Kneel down by her pallet and kiss the death-frost 

From the lips of the angel your poverty lost • 

Then turn in your agony upward to God, 

And bless, while it smites you, the chastening rod. 

And you'll find at the end of your life's little span, 

There's a welcome above for a moneyless man. 



CHAPTER XI. 

A TEMPERATE TALK. 

Truth. Dan Derange, ere we part, let me give you 
a little advice, but first, here is a pound to supply 
your immediate wants. Go your way, ponder on what 
I say, but endeavor to learn from the vicissitudes that 
vice and misfortune engender that no matter what 
your poetic, patriotic, or scientific ability may be, the 
lack of moderation, discretion and common sense will 
not compensate you for the loss of reputation or the 
respect of the world, but will be a sharp thorn to 
sting conscience in your last hours of dissolution. 

You are a young man yet, and may trim up and re- 
form from the besetting and almost universal sin of 
intemperance. You are only food for ale, whisky 
and wine sellers, who are as heartless as the stones you 
now stand upon ; and after spending valuable time, and 
your last farthing at their gilded resorts, they would 
see you die in the gutter and bo buried in the Potter's 
field without a sigh for your situation or a dollar for 
your eternal departure. 

Intemperance is the most fruitful source of worldly 
ruin. Like the tiger of the jungles, it is the monster 
that lacerates the poor and drags down even the rich. 
As a deep seated cancer, it silently eats into the phys- 
ical and moral vitals of man, until at last the stagger- 

158 



A 'rempcrcdc Talk. 150 

ing victim sinks into a dislionored and nameless grave, 
leaving beliind a starving family and cruel memory. 
See the dark hovel of the drunkard's family in midnight 
liours. His shivering wife and babe crouch about the 
smoldering embers that flicker on the broken hearth 
and die on the cold ashes of despair. She peers 
through the broken window and the midnight gloom 
for a husband that may never come, and clasps the 
freezing child to her broken heart. She imagines 
that already, he has b'^come the victim of some mur- 
derous blow, or in a fit of delirium has blown his own 
brains out or flung himself into the dark embrace of 
"the rolling river, and as slio hears the sound of the pis- 
tol or rusli of the stream, she heaves her life aAvay in 
one last sigh, and is found dead in the morning with 
her infant child a corpse in her arms — another innocent 
victim to the passion and insanity of the demoniac 
drunkard. 

The man who drinks whisky as a beverage, stands 
on the verge of an open volcano ; storms above, poverty 
around and death below. The social glass in the home 
leads to the glass of the bloat in the bar-room, the wine 
cup at the banquet, to the bottle and jug on the roa^l. 
The lumbering stage of the drunkard is now fairly 
whirling on the way to destruction ; the reins of the 
horses are slack; the liubs are greased for the flight 
and the driver can't reach the brakes. Round and 
round he rolls down the mountain side of life. Circles, 
angles, rocks, trees and streams are passed with a 
lightning speed, until the linch-pin of reason drops 



160 JSfazer: a 2ji(j-zag Philosophy. 

from the axle of understanding and the rider is dashed 
into the gulf, a thousand feet below, where the waters 
of oblivion sweep over him forever. 

The brightest men of the world are caught by the 
devil in his whisky net. Tlu; small fry often get 
through the meshes, but the royal sturgeon and sal- 
mon swim right into the trap in fancied security, flound 
ering when too late to extricate themselves from the 
demon that ensnared their genorosit}'„ I have seen poets, 
statesmen and generals of the highest order, in every 
land and clime, in midnight and morning hours, stag- 
gering home in maudlin imbecility. Perhaps through 
the day these fine inteliocts held listening throngs un- 
der the spell of their genius, eloquence or victorious 
battles. They could conquer other men, but they 
could not conquer their own appetites. Passion took 
full charge; the devil was commander-in-chief, and 
whisky was his adjutant-goneral. 

Loved ones and neighbors must suffer for the 
crimes of the drunkard and share more or less the 
odium that attaches to his quarrelsome conduct. Little 
bare feet, cold shoulders, empty stomachs, ragged beds, 
leaking roofs, the poor-house, prison and Potter's field 
go in his fearful train. The blossoms of youth and 
pride are forgotten, the flowers of manhood bear no 
perfumes, and at last comes the nettles and briers of 
old age, remorse and death. Gilded palaces, club 
houses and glaring saloons are dedicated to blistering 
Bacchus. Tliousands of ruined homes are swamped 
in the pool of this voracious god, from day to day, and 



A Temperate Talk. 161 

year to year, aud yet his reigu seems to flourish with- 
out any mercy or intermission for the vain victims who 
patronize the flowing fountain of his irrepressible in- 
iquity. 

Go to the dance-house, bar-room, tavern, concert hall 
and theaters of tlie cities of the world any night and 
see their benches filled for a price, where sour beer, 
poison whisky and manufactured wines are poured 
down passionate throats to the music of lascivious 
tunes, the maudlin laugh of the belated bloat and the 
simpering smile of the battered beauty at his side. 
These halls of killing revelry are crowded for cash, 
while the church across the way that proffers peace 
and purity for nothing is almost empty, its vacant 
pews being a terrible commentary on the degeneracy of 
the day. 

These places must be invaded by the workers of a 
sound religious truth, who will speak to the heart and 
appeal to the reason of the poor, weak wrecks of human 
passion, whose pride and self-respect has been almost 
submerged in the brimming, killing bowl, sought 
often for the purpose of drowning some secret sorrow, 
but in lucid moments only filling the heart and brain 
with remorse and disgust at their unavailin«: effort to 
soothe sorrow by wreckless inebriety and debauchery. 
Religion, at last, is the sheet anchor of the soul. 
It springs in the heart, bright and beautiful, a foun- 
tain of never failing consolation to those who trust in a 
Divine Providence. The sailor riding over dangerous 
billows works on against roaring storms, hoping to 
11 



162 Nazer: a Zlg-zcuj Philosophy. 

reach some distant shore where loved ones await him. 
Hope inspires even when the last wave engulfs him for 
ever. Strike it from the heart and you have a trackless 
ocean without compass or rudder to guide your lurch- 
ing barque, and a barren desert without water, tree or 
flower to cheer the weary traveler. Kill religious hope 
and the rose has no perfume, the birds no song, the 
brook no music, the stars no brightness, the sun no 
warmth, the home no beauty and the world no virtue. 

Doubt and infidelity are the forerunners of des- 
truction. Luxury, licentiousness and intemperance are 
triplet brothers of ruin. The corroding doctrine of the 
scoffer is eating into the life blood of the world, tear- 
ing down the thoughts of centuries established in 
blood and sanctified by fire, while they substitute noth- 
ing over the idols and altars they destroy. Belief in 
society and government in this fleeting world is abso- 
lutely necessary for prosperity and peace here, and be- 
comes an assured promise for rest and peace beyond 
the grave. Anarchy or non-belief is fatal to society 
and becomes the very essence of disintegration and 
death. When Egypt, Greece and Kome forgot virtue 
and their God, they decayed and died, leaving behind 
the memory of their sins in their crumbling temples, 
moldering monuments and buried cities. 

Infidelity is a winter without a spring, a Siberian 
waste where only the bear and the wolf send forth their 
hungry growl and howl on the track of the tired trav- 
eler. Far better a deathless hope than a hopeless 
death ! 



A Temperate Talk. 163 

The iconoclast may boast of his having smashed 
many beloved idols for thousands of years, bvit he 
never yet broke so many images of virtue and love as 
Bacchus. Listen to his boast: 

THE BOAST OF BACCHUS. 

I reign over land, I reign over sea, 

The proudest of eartli I bring to my knee ; 

As weak as a child in the midnight of care 

The prince and the peasant I strip bleak and bare, 

A taste of my b^oad sends a thrill to the heart, 
And speeds through the soul like a poisonous dart, 
While I leave it a wreck of trouble and pain 
That never on earth can be perfect again. 

The youth in his bloom and the man in his might, 
I capture by day and I conquer by night ; 
The maid and the matron respond to my call, 
I rule like a tyrant and ride over all. 

In the gilded saloon and the glittering crowd 
I deaden the senses and humble the proud. 
And tear from the noble, the good and the great. 
The love and devotion of home, church and state. 

I blast all the honor that manhood holds dear, 
I smile with delight at the sight of a tear; 
And laugh in the revel and rout of a night. 
My mission on earth is to blur and to blight. 

I ruin the homes of the high and the low, 
I blast every hope of the friend and the foe; 
The world I sear with my blistering breath 
And millions I lead to the portals of death. 

« 
In the parlor and dance-house I sparkle and roar 
Like billows that break on a wild rocky shore; 
I crush every virtue, destroy every truth 
That blossoms in beauty or blushes in youth, 



164 Nazcr: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

My power is mighty for sin and despair; 
I crouch like a lion that waits in his lair, 
To mangle the life of the pure and the brave 
And drag them in sorrow to shame and the grave. 

I drown royal hearts in the dregs of the bowl; 
I sing and exult in the sigh of the soul; 
I darken the mind of the faithful and fine — 
Hurrah for the devil that reigns in the wine! 



Truth. Now Dan, here comes my friends Love 
and Generosity, wlio, by-the-bye, are disposed to var- 
nisli over your failings and throw the mantle of charity, 
even over your impulsive crimes, but for myself I 
must give you the whole truth as I see and feel it, 
without a particle of flattery. 

Dan Derange. But who knows the truth? 

Zoroaster, thousands of years ago, taught his follow- 
ers to believe in light and heat, and that it was the 
proper thing to worship the sun. 

Buddha, the Indian prince who lived six hundred 
years before our era, taught his Oriental millions that 
it was the square thing to believe in annihilation, 
eternal rest, or nothing. 

The Hebrews believed in the Talmud which taught 
of an orthodox God, and that the Rabbis' word was all 
in all, and his cherem, curse or excommunication, against 
any one of the Synagogue, was enough to deprive him 
of respect and property in this world and bliss in the 
next. 

Christ, a Jew, tau.ght that in this world we should 
do unto others as we would have them do unto us, an(3 



A Tcmperaie Talk. 165 

that by the exercise of Charity, at least, we would 
have eternal life beyond the grave "where the wicked 
cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." 

The Egyptians through their gods Osiris and Isis, 
and the telephonic High Priests, believed in a "job 
lot " of mythical gods, but made the vain endeaver to 
have their kings and rulers live in stone needles, tem- 
ples and pyramids, now crumbled or crumbling over 
the dust of those who erected them. 

Mohammed, the bloody war murderer, forced his 
Koran into the hands and hearts of millions by fire and 
sword, and made his devotees believe that he was the 
special agent of Allah, or God. 

And so, down to the present day, man has molded 
manufactured gods for man to worship, and yet the 
realm beyond the grave is as blank and dark as the 
purlieus of Plutonian night. 

So, I say who knows the truth ? 

Farewell, I will make a last search for my sweet sis- 
ter " Bet," and perhaps in her loving arms I may send 
a last sigh to our dear old home, that it may finally 
echo as a sad requiem over the little green mounds 
above the graves of our affectionate parents 



CHAPTEK XII. 

SOARING, PROPHECY, JUSTICE, 

Truth. Well we must away from these scenes of 
joy and woe to other climes and regions where man 
does not prey, not only on all animated nature, but on 
himself. 

Love. Some day we shall find out that all good or 
evil proceed from our own thoughts or acts ; and that the 
misfortunes that befall us here, can be traced directly 
to indiscretion. 

Generosity. Speaking for myself I can say, in a 
measure, that what you say is true; and yet my dear 
and only friends, I could point you out many instances 
where I became the victim of other men's vice and 
criminality. Many false friends have asseverated to 
me in sunshine that they would be as true as the stars, 
and that in poverty, disgrace, and even death they 
would stand by my si^e to the last . 

But, alas for the weakness or treachery of human 
nature, at the first lowering of the clouds of misfortune, 
and at the first sound of approaching danger these 
surface, policy friends, would creep away with cat-like 
rapidity and leave me alone, not only to endure mental 
and material punishment for my own indiscretion, but 
also to bear the burden of their sins. What arrant 
cowards ! 

166 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 167 

Truth. My brother, you speak in the line of a just 
experience, and I shall not attempt to deny or counter- 
vail your statements. Let us rise out of the smoke 
and sins of this great city and wing away to the frigid 
north in search of unknown lands, Avhere other be- 
ings may give us more hope and consolation than we 
behold here. At every turn about this green, gas- 
eous globe, I hear nothing but money, money, war, 
war. 

Even now as we soar over the temporary habi- 
tations of men, I can see them preparing, in the 
depths of their wicked hearts, for one grand universal 
battle, where tyranny and liberty shall fight for one 
kingdom or one republic. 

The contest seems unequal. America, France and 
Russia, the most advanced and benighted, are, strange 
to say, friends in the great conflict. 

England, Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, Spain, Turkey, 
Asia and Africa stand as roaring beasts in the path of 
progress. 

They leave the earth and assail each other miles 
above, with aerial navies and armies whose feet are 
winged like Mercury, whose arms are pinioned like 
mad eagles, and whose bristling, electric bayonet 
points flash like the brilliant arrows of the dawning day. 
The thundering roar of heaven's artillery sounds 
not more fearful than the clash of these flying armies 
and navies in the " upper blue." The lightnings of 
Ajax seem to be nursed in the hollow of freedom's hand, 
and as the mail clad warriors of tyranny fling them- 



168 Nnzer: a Zig-zag Phitosophy. 

selves to the front with ponderous force, they are 
beaten back by electric bullets, bayonets and balls of 
celestial fire, hurled by the unerring hand of Liberty 
and her bleeding heroes. 

Down, down to earth go victor and vanished, 
horse and rider, cannons and ships, until half the 
contending millions seem blotted from the sky. 

Again they rise on the wings of electric war and 
crash together like angry clouds in a stormy sunset. 
Ziz-zag bolts of lightning are showered on each army, 
and the billowy waves of dreadful sound that rise and 
fall in the advance or retreat of the contending war- 
riors, blind the sight, make deaf the ear, and stop the 
pulsations of the bravest hearts. 

The sun goes down upon the conflict, and as the 
red moon rolls up from the bleeding horizon the van- 
quished hosts of tyranny are seen falling, falling down, 
down to the lowest hell, where Ingratitude, Remorse 
and Despair shall commingle together forever. 
****** 

Those who believed in liberty for its own sake, lin- 
gered on the domain of their tyrant oppressors until 
the conquering millions of freedom settled back on the 
earth once more, to organize, out of a chaotic world, a 
Universal Republic. 

General Principle, ruling all the Americas, con- 
sulted for a few days with France and Russia, and 
while the Czar of the frozen zone shrugged his shoul- 
ders, and growled a little at the idea of a Universal 
Republic. He finally consented to become a man of jus- 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 169 

fcice. The world was divided up into three hundred states, 
and each state sent two representatives to Washington, 
the capital of the globe, located in a country that was 
ance called the United States. Washington, the head- 
quarters of the world, had a population of ten millions 
of people, extending from the ancient forks of the Poto- 
mac river and Georgetown, down to the Atlantic ocean. 

When the six hundred representatives assembled at 
midnight, under a full moon, every man answered to 
his name as he was called by General Peinciple, the 
commander in chief. 

The capitol was located on a high hill overlooking 
the millions that lived below. It was built of pure 
white marble, thirty -three stories high, and was ten 
miles in circumference. All the business offices of the 
government were inside the walls. 

From this capital the mode of locomotion was rapid 
and novel. On the western heights of the city a cir- 
cular depot three miles in circumference was estab- 
lished. Radiating over the earth, twelve thousand five 
hundred miles, ran from this point, throe thousand pneu- 
matic tubes. The tubes, or cylinders, were seven feet in 
diameter and were in duplicate form, so that electric cars 
that shot through them never collided. These pneu- 
matic cylinders were made of flexible, malleable steel, 
and had a strength of a thousand pounds to the square 
inch. They were laid over the earth on valley, hill, 
river, lake and ocean, and appeared like mammoth ana- 
condas stretching away to the farthest limit of human, 
habitation. The cars that ran through these tubes were 



170 Ndzer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

suspended on indestructible trucks that bore all the pres- 
sure of the air as it rushed into the vacuum created, 
and the eight people who occupied seats were oblivious 
of the lightning rapidity of their transit of thousands 
of miles in a few minutes. 

A person wishing to visit New York, London, San 
Francisco, Pekin, Rio Janeiro, St. Petersburg, Paris, 
Eome, Athens, Berlin, Constantinople, Sitka, Mexico, 
Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, Cape May, Galveston, 
Moscow, Dublin, Columbus, Louisville, Portland, 
Edinburg, Cairo, Yokahama, Oshkosh, Charleston, 
Geneva, Lima, Delhi, Cape Town, Baltimore, or any 
other " way station " over the globe, had only to step 
up to the man that held the lever at the mouth of the 
tube, state his desire and place of destination, and he 
or she were at once placed in one of the palace cars, 
charged with air and light, and shot, inside of five 
minutes, to the utmost limit of the earth. When the 
top door flew open the passenger stepped out as 
gay and fresh as a daisy. You could hear the con- 
ductors night and day cry out, such as this: "All 
aboard for Eome, London and Delhi ! " " All out for 
Rome, London and Delhi!'' A swing of the lever, 
flashed the pneumatic cars through the world like light- 
ning. 

And the beauty of all this was that the government 
paid the freight. A man could breakfast on ripe fruit 
in Persia, dine on dandelions at Danville, and take 
supper on " sour mash " in Kentucky. Everybody Avas 
so neighborly, and the cold, stuck-up, frigidity people 
were dead, and well. 



i^oanng, Prophecy, Justice. 171 

The constitution was unwritten, and there was but 
one law, and that absolute justice. 

All property was in common, and there were no 
poor or rich in the government. 

The election for President was held every seven 
years, and every man and woman throughout the world 
seventeen years of age, and upward, voted at twelve 
o'clock on the Fourth of July, D. N. L. 

Every house in the Cosmos had a tap telephone, 
and the register of votes flew out at once on an electric 
board, and there was no going back of the returns! 

Either the illustrious Smith or Jones were elected 
for seven years, and did not take any oath of office. 
He was not that kind of a man. 

Every one Avas honest, and there was no necessity 
for building up guilds, societies and material rings as 
they did in the early days of creation. 

Men and women were not hypocrites, cowards or 
tyrants and they would not lie, steal or murder, for 
they were not created that way. 

There was no death in the universal commonwealth. 
After the people lived exactly one thousand years, they 
shifted the old, wrinkled shell, and began birth again 
at the age of seventeen. The man who had once been 
such, became a woman, and the woman became a man. 
Just an equalization to teach square up and down 
justice. Steamboats and railroads were left stranded 
on the old shores of time, a streak of dust and rust. 

Navigation was by air and pneumatic tubes, and 
every mortal, young or old could rise from the earth 



172 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosojihy. 

on his electric wings and fly, at least five liundred 
miles an hour if disposed to do so, or two thousand 
miles a minute by tube. The only animal on the earth 
was man ; beasts, birds and fishes had no place in the 
cosmogony. 

Wild vegetables, and fruits of the best and freshest 
kind grew everywhere. There was no fall, winter or 
spring. It was one eternal summer, and men and 
women needed no clothing, but like an ancient lady 
named Eve and a gentleman named Adam, they wan- 
dered over the earth, in pursuit of nothing but unal- 
loyed pleasure, and they found it. 

Love. Your republic suits me exactly, and there I 
would wish to linger forever. 

Generosity. Count me in on the magnanimous 
meanderings of your Utopia. 

****** 

Truth. Hush! here we are at the very center of 
the Arctic circle, and there in the dazzling distance 
stands the Geni to that lower world, the heaven of ani- 
mals and the hell of man. Ah ! well met; here comes 
our old companions WiT, Despair, Hate, and Hope, 
What news abroad ? 

Wit. The world as foolish af ever. 

Despair. Death at every turn. 

Hate. Everything wrong. 

Hope. Everything pure and lovely. 

Truth. Steady; we are now in the round 
rush of the terrible ocean, that takes us millions of 
miles to the black shades of everlasting hell for all 



Soaring, Prophecy, JusUce. 173 

those wlio have committed fi'aud, and injustice in this 
sand speck from the sun. 

Genii. Halt! Who goes there? 

Truth. Love, Hope, AYit and Despair. 

Genii. Give the countersign. 

Truth. In a low voice, " Life and death." 

******** 

All were swept away into the roaring, seething 
waters by the flashing wand of the Genii. As they 
were tossed and tumbled through the ice shaft that led 
to the regions below. Despair and Hate were dashed 
to pieces ; Wit opened his mouth to get off one of his 
"chestnuts" and was choked to death by a boulder of 
ice ; Hope sprang to the front but his calculations were 
dashed to oblivion ; Love intervened to cajole the Genii, 
when a blast from his breath froze her to death, and 
Truth and Generosity alone, were the only survivors 
that reached the gloomy grove below where the mortals 
that once lived in the upper world were constantly pur- 
sued by the animals, birds and fishes they once abused 
and fed upon. 

The Genii in his descent with Truth and Generos- 
ity placed upon the right fore-finger of Truth a blood- 
red ring, saying as he departed that it would protect 
them against all danger ; and while they might often be 
in imminent peril, a flash of the ring would ward off all 
enemies. 

Truth. Well, my noble friend, you and I after all, 
are the only ones left of those that graced our earthly 
train. I often had doubts as to your final survival, for 



174 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

your seeming want of thought, and prodigality, has fre- 
quently brought a pain to my heart and a blush to my 
cheek. Yet with all your failings, and they are not a 
few, I love you anyhow. I have seen you often, in 
midnight and morning hours, go silent and alone to 
the bedside of sickness and poverty, and give even your 
last dollar to the needy and suffering, while you went 
without breakfast yourself. I have noticed your un- 
complaining tongue tied when you could not say some- 
thing good, and have seen you many times walk away 
burdened with the miseries of others, and I have seen 
you shed tears at the open appeal of misfortune, when 
you were so poor that tears were the only gems you 
could bestow. Oh ! how sad the sight ! to behold the 
wretchedness and misery of others without the power 
of relieving their distress. 

Geneeosity. I am supremely glad that there has 
been at least one mortal who could sound the depths 
of my soul and give me credit for my innate virtues. 

Truth. There are always a few who will do you 
justice in the long run, and know that even your fail- 
ings lean to virtue's side. 

Now, let us proceed and explore this rugged and 
horrible world. We'll stand together and ponder on 
what we see. 

*:if. ■>- jA*. 'if. ,*!<■- ^ ajl^ 

Tp y^ "^ ^ ^ ^ vP 

After moving down a dark, precipitous ravine for 
about five miles they came abruptly against a high, 
stone walled door, with a ponderous iron knocker. 

Truth gave three loud knocks, when the door 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 175 

swung open, and lo and behold! there stood two rampant 
lions with large guns in their paws, roaring a demand 
for the intrusion of Truth to their dominions. You must 
know that the animals, beasts, birds and fishes of this 
strange and horrible region could talk, and that the 
human beings were nearly dumb. And, curious to re- 
late, the same instruments formerly used by man for 
the destruction of animals were now used by the 
beasts, birds and fishes ; and their fore feet, paws and 
fins answered the purpose of arms. 

One flash of the magic ring made these lions stand 
aside, with a rapid raid to the rear. 

The face of the country was very broken, and wher- 
ever the eye could catch a glimpse of the moving 
myriads of human beings, they were hunted, beaten 
and eaten up by the very same kind of animals they 
devoured on earth. A tit-for-tat kind of game was 
played with a vengeance. 

Truth. Look what a long line of monkeys and 
baboons in the distance holding something like little 
dark men and women at the end of a string, making 
them jump, dance and squeal for their amusement. 
Those are Italians, and while Caesar, Dante, Angelo, 
Horace, Beatrice, Laura and Lucretia Borgia head the 
procession, the monkeys have them now on the hip and 
all the memory of vanished glory will not purchase a 
plate of macaroni. They get nothing to eat but stale 
cocoanuts, with the milk soured. 

This tribe of large variety monkeys lived in a deep 



176 Nazer: a Zig-zng Philosopliy. 

tangled forest and had a fine time, while the parrots 
that flew about in the trees seemed as delighted with 
the misery of the classic and lazzaroni Italians as if 
each poll held the string herself. " Purty Italians 
wants a macaroni " and then, as if in fiendish derision 
flung a cocoanut on the head of the nearest Caesar or 
Borgia. This experiment never failed to crack the 
cocoanut. We wandered on for days and days, thous- 
ands of miles, and as we passed each group they seem- 
ed at least to know that we were privileged characters 
and did not disturb our movements or curiosity. 

In one of our perambulations, after scaling a very 
high mountain, we came suddenly in view of an inland 
sea that swept away to the dimmest line of the melt- 
ing horizon. 

On the beach as far as the eye could reach, we be- 
held moving masses of mammoth salmon, blue fish, 
shad, mackerel, lobsters, crabs, oysters and clams, pok- 
ing and tumbling about long heaps of diminutive boys, 
girls, men and women, red, black and white, that had 
been caught and cooked up in the great annual clam 
bake given every year by the Shark that ran the sum- 
mer hotel. 

The neighboring animals, and also beasts and birds 
from a distance, came in their annual search for pleas- 
ure, to feed off the various human beings that had been 
caught, killed and cooked for their delectation. 

The lion of old Africa and his numerous family 
were there with all the paraphernalia of his native jun- 
gles. They seemed to take great delight in breaking 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 177 

up the bones and tearing the flesh of a fresh lot of 
English dudes that had been flung on a mound of sea 
weed and sand at their feet. I never saw such a vora- 
cious set of lions. The memory of their own tortures 
in ancient times lent, no doubt, great zest to their ap- 
petite. 

It was rather laughable to see a Dolly Varden set of 
wild ducks, geese, turkeys, pigeons, snipes, pheasants, 
grouse, wood cock, partridge, quail, and even reed 
birds, at one end of the great annual feast, wading in 
with claws and bills, tearing and eating delicate mor- 
sels of field, river, ocean and mountain huntsmen, who 
in the past showed no mercy for the feathered tribe. 

At one elevated place, a spurt of sand into the sea, 
we beheld a very large flock of domestic ducks, geese, 
chickens and turkeys ravenously tearing open the 
cooked eyes, ears and breasts of a number of wrinkled 
humanity, some done to a crisp, and others as rare as 
a rooster. A close examination would show one that 
these victims of malice or justice, had once been fe- 
male cooks and waiters from old Germany, France, 
Italy, Ireland, England, America, Rhode Island 
and New Jersey. You could see also a long lot of 
dishes filled with "colored belles" and "old mam- 
mies " from Virginia, Kentucky, and South Carolina. 
At these places the spring chickens, the fat capon, and 
the gay turkey gobbler, with his proud strut, took pe- 
culiar delight in twisting and eating off the heads of 
" old mammies," " Sis. Sals," "Cousin Lous" and "Aunt 
Fannies." As an old comic friend of ours once said, 

as 



178 Nazc)': a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

they had a H. O. T.— a high okl time! P. D. Q. As 
the four evening suns declined (for you must know 
that at the four points of the compass in this rare reahn, 
there were four rising and four setting suns, the first 
quartette doing the rising, and second doing the setting 
business). All the fish tribes of river and sea, formed 
in double files aud surrounded the tables by the water, 
devouring with great relish the remains of the Walton 
rod and line men, and the innumerable specimens of 
trap, spear and net men, who, in all the ages had fed 
off their progenitors. 

It was funny, if not so serious, to see the cod and 
his f unily, as well as the mackerel, and herring, go for 
the sweet bits of the Nantucket and Newfoundland fish- 
erman. But when the salmon and sturgeon from the 
Shannon, Columbia, and Volga, threw their round, roll- 
ing eyes on heaps of Hiberians, Yankees, and sheep-skin 
Russians, I could fairly see their mouths water with 
even the anticipated pleasure of the feast. 

The large lobsters, unctious oysters, and capering 
clams were at least " getting even " with the Dorians 
and dudes of Delmonico's. In fact, the number of 
saloon and restaurant keepers, theater goers, pot-house 
politicians, midnight gamblers and congressmen that 
were devoured that evening would certainly astonish 
the Jews. 

And speaking of the Jews, I beheld a million or 
more of chickens picking heaps of them down to the 
very bones; but when the droves of hogs came prowling 
about in search of food, they rooted about for a second, 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 179 

gave one uuanimous, disgusted grunt, and left the He- 
brews to the hens. This Jew meat was the only thing 
at the feast that the hogs would not touch, and Ave 
could not tell, even at that day, whether the fact was 
a compliment to the hog or the Jew, so we turned 
away and left them to settle it themselves. 

The hogs, sheep and cattle took particular delight 
in feasting on a lot of old London, New York, and 
Chicago slayers and packers. Each had their " Ar- 
mour" of vengeance on, and ordered butchers on toast. 
There was one bouncing butcher from Chicago, so 
large and weighty that he furnished food, in himself, 
for a whole drove of animals. As the last rays of the 
dying day shone on the sands of this inland sea, I 
could observe that there was nothing left but skeletons 
of the feast, such as empty beer bottles and barrels, 
and champagne bottles, formerly belonging to a 
Mr. Mumm, Mrs. Clicquot and Perry Jouet, French 
people of ancient Bacchanalian proclivities. They 
were devoured with the contents of their own bottles. 
Generosity and myself turned away from the de- 
plorable wreck and debris of human hopes, and dastard 
desolation, just as the forty full moons (for you must 
know that there were ten times more moons than suns 
in this infernal region) substituted the garish rays of 
the setting sun. 

The stars that shone from the zenith of the sky 
were nearly as large as the moons and of a bluish tinge, 
while the large rolling comets and planets were white, 



180 Nuzcr: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

leaving the mammoth red moons riding in ghoulish 
glory over all. 

The peculiar light emitted from these luminaries 
was of such a hue that we could see at least a hundred 
miles with the naked eye, and discern very small 
objects at that distance. 

After traveling along the shore of the sea and its 
winding indentations for three hundred and thirty- 
three miles, we at last came to a narrow, deep, roaring 
strait or canal, dashing between two vast mountains 
whose tops seemed, in fact, to pierce the somber sky, 
a hundred thousand feet above the surrounding coun- 
try. Smoke curled up in spiral columns from the 
cones of the twin mountains, and streams of red-hot 
lava leaped in fantastic wildness to the valley and plains 
below. We pushed our way through the jagged rocks 
that lined the strait and found it to be about five 
miles long. At the lower end we saw it was only the 
outlet of the upland sea Ave had just left, discharging 
its angry waters into the placid bosom of an ocean 
that stretched far away under the midnight lights of this 
inferno, as if its waters kissed an unlimited horizon. 

The uneasy beasts, birds and fishes were stirring 
everywhere, and the millions of men women and 
children seemed to be forever on the run, endeavoring 
to escape their attack. 

Occasionally we went through a rocky, swampy 
forest, the paradise of vipers, lizards and snakes of all 
climes. Under their deathly sting and fatal folds we 
beheld human beings in the last stages of physical and 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 181 

meutal agouy. The cries, shrieks and lamentations of 
these wretches would bring tears even to the iron heart 
of my old acquaintance Nazer, the tyrant of Lower 
Thebes. Their bones would crack under the crushing 
caresses of the anacondas, and yet they could not die] 
for every time one of them was seemingly devoured 
he was not, but continued in an immortality of 
fear, pain and living death. The persons de- 
voted to the sport of this paradise of reptiles were 
principally composed of hypocrites, liars, assassins, 
gossips, burglars, rapers, and murderers, and " the 
woods were full of them!" 

It was curious to see the large, healthy anacondas 
resting or hanging on the surrounding branches, toy- 
ing, as it were, with a bad boy or man in his sinewy 
arms, leisurely working up his victim with all the ease 
that characterizes the Laocoon. We beheld a nest of 
rampant rattlesnakes in the crevice of a huge rock, 
wearing about their necks the toe and linger nails of a 
lot of mountain hunters from Georgia, in justification 
of the millions of rattles curtailed from their progeni- 
tors in the wilds of vanished years. A triple headed 
tiger with triple paws held in his grasp, the forms of 
Brutus, Booth and Guiteau, historic assassins, forever 
whirling them around and crashing their bleeding 
heads on a pile of broken granite, crimsoned with the 
never ceasing flow of their blood, and wailing with 
their soul-piercing shrieks. 

As we moved along the shoreless ocean we began 
to ascend a mountain height, and after progressing for 



182 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

about five miles, a large herd of goats and cliamois 
came to view, aud were leaping with might and main 
to overtake a crowd of old hunters. They suc- 
ceeded in several instances. When they chased their 
former enemies to a precipitous cliff, they butted up 
again them with their heads and horns, and tumbled 
them over the fearful chasm. As they fell we could 
hear the scream of delight from gray eagles and vul- 
tures as they pursued the falling wrecks of humanity. 
No sooner had they struck the jagged rocks at the 
bottom of the chasm than the birds of the air began to 
j)ick out their eyes and tongues, and strip the flesh from 
their quivering fingers and battered breasts. 

As we proceeded around ocean crags the air began 
to grow colder and colder, and the distant upland was 
covered with what seemed to be eternal snow. Black 
forests stretched away to the right and illimitable j)lains 
rolled away to our left. Rushing through the woods Ave 
could see reindeer driving long trains of Russians 
and Siberians, hitched up to curiously fashioned 
sleighs. A large party of Buck reindeers with their 
does and faAvns could be seen sitting back, in royal 
style, taking a family drive along the waters of Avhat 
looked like the upper Volga or Lena. A team of 
thirty-three Russians, Polanders or Siberians, was 
harnessed to each vehicle by skin ropes made from 
the hides of the natives. The Buck deer used one 
slender cat-gut rein that passed through the left ear 
of each human being, and with his fore feet and horns 
he managed to manipulate the line with as much tact 



Soarimj, Prophecy, Justice. 183 

as we had often observed drivers use on the old earth. 
The speed was rapid. Numerous trains of Lapland- 
ers were scurrying over the snow, and the old gray- 
headed dog drivers were barking with great delight as 
they lashed up the people who had starved and beaten 
them to death in the long ago, The former masters of 
these dogs looked very lean, and Avhen one of the low 
sledges would halt for a moment near skirts of stunted 
underbrush the train of "Laps." would rush to the 
small shrubs and devour the branches and bark, down 
to the very heart. And when night came these tired 
creatures were left outside to huddle together around 
the ice huts of their dog masters or prowl about the 
midnight camps in search of the remains of tallow 
candles or the entrails of their comrades. One morn- 
ing as the four suns rose over this subterranean world 
we suddenly came in sight of a great extended city, 
situated along the indentations of the wonderful ocean 
we had traversed a few days previous. 

In the suburbs of the city we passed hundreds of 
worn down, blistered backed, ham strung, knee-halt, 
hip shod, blind, epizootic L'ishmen, Dutchmen, Eng- 
lishmen, Frenchmen, Italians and New Yorkers, being 
whipped, pounded, clubbed and driven almost to death 
in heavy loaded carts, drays and wagons by the self 
same brutes that they abused and destroyed in ancient 
times. 

There was one man, head and shoulders above those 
that surrounded him, as he walked along the wide 
streets, who seemed to take a modest and silent delight 



184 Nazcr: (i Zig-zag Philosophy. 

at the spectacle of what we heard him utter in modu- 
lated tones, " poetic justice," " poetic justice," " poetic 
justice." As the donkies, mules and horses drove by, 
seated on their cart seats, and wielding a gad or black- 
snake whip over the backs of their former drivers, I 
could see them, with a flash of joy in each eye, wag 
their ears and tails in homage to this noted man, 
who bore the name of Bergh in the old world. He 
lifted his hat, smiled a kind of sad smile, and occa- 
sionally dropped a tear at the forlorn but merited 
condition of the brutes of his own race. 

Wandering through this great subterranean city, in 
the summer time, I heard several young baboons yel- 
ling at the highest pitch of their voices. 

"All about the 'bawl' game," I asked the ani- 
mated financiers, " what is that? " 

" Oh ! " said the frantic urchins " that is a game played 
for the amusement of the public, and ' gate money ! ' 
A lot of lazy lazaroni monkeys, baboons and 
gorillas, go about the country dressed up in stripes, 
batting and ' bawling ' money out of the pockets of 
fools." 

" Of course you would think that this great city would 
go at once, into bankruptcy, unless it kept up a ' bawl ' 
game." 

Ah! I see, said the blind man, I see! 

After traversing thes^e zig-zag windings, we were 
swept one morning into a great rush of beings, all 
tending one way to the — 



Soaring, Prophecy, Justice. 185 

UNIVERSAL DERBY COURSE. 

Beasts, birds, and shoals of fishes along the 
streams, and shore of the ocean were out in their 
gayest furs, feathers and scales. And the thousands of 
variety of human beings that were being driven onward 
with a rush by the animals, Avas a grand but fearful 
sight to behold. The race course lay in a valley 
along the ocean, surrounded by circular hills on three 
sides, resembling a mammoth amphitheatre ten miles 
in circumference. 

The fishes occupied front waves along the streams 
and shore of the ocean. The birds were perched on 
trees and rocks in the left foot and top hills, while the 
beasts of all kinds and climes held the right and 
center with the snakes and reptiles crouched at 
their feet near the margin of the smooth race track. 
The grand stand was in the center, and the judges 
stand in front of that. It was occupied by nine asses, 
donkeys and He horses v»dio were to be judges of the 
grand human race, the last and only one of the season. 

Exactly at twelve o'clock in the day ninety-nine 
well equipped monkeys, dogs, donkeys and young stal- 
lions drove up in light but strong road- wagons, and 
harnessed to each, in tandem, were thirty-three 
human beings who once drove at the Olympic games, 
the Roman Corso, the Down's, Sheep Head Bay, at the 
Chicago and the Louisville races. All the animals in 
the grand stand, quarter-stretch and pooling places 
were wild with excitement, and a financial anxiety was 
pictured in every face. 



186 Nazer: a Zig-zag Philosophy. 

The lady animals bet bunches of rare feathers, furs, 
sweetmeats and fine fruits, and bang-up suppers at 
the Hotel Shark, Fox, Lion, Bear, Bull, Dog or Cat, 
after the race was over. 

The loud cry, bark, scream and howl of the pool 
sellers could be heard for exactly five miles away. 
Millions of wares and money had been staked on the 
issue. 

It was exactly five miles around the track, and the 
human animals had to go three times without inter- 
mission, before the grand, gay and glorious fifteen 
mile race could be decided. At the thunder roar of 
an erupting neighboring volcano, touched off by the 
Great Ass Starter, and the exclamation "go!" the 
ninety-nine teams, in their ninety-nine colors, dashed 
under the grape vine, and began what is remembered 
to this day, the most memorable race on record. As 
they passed the quarter-post, a yell went up for "Eng- 
land," " England," hurrah for " England ! " 

When the half-mile post was passed, the myriad of 
animals that swam, sat or roosted around the amphi- 
theatre rose to their tails, claws and feet and gave a 
loud yell for " France! " " France! " 

When the three-quarter stretch was gained, a roar 
as if out of the clouds, went up and down for " Ken- 
tucky! " "Kentucky! "but when the front team ambled 
up gayly under the vine for the first continuous heat 
and passed on around the course, you could hear the 
most sonorous triple echo yell that ever struck animal 



Soaring, Propliecy, JnsHce. 187 

ears of "Thebes!" "Thebes!" " Eah for Nazer and 
Thebes! " 

And as the Theban tandem spurted about the 
ring with a gayety and ease astonishing to the countless 
spectators, and once more trotted under the vine, all 
could see that it was a "walk-over," and many of the 
betting beauties and speculators began " to hedge " 
and sigh for their fading Avealth. 

On the home stretch, for the last time, many of the 
teams were entirely disabled, some of them down on 
track, driver, and trotter shouting and yelling in de- 
feated heaps. 

All had been left as wrecks along the course but 
" Sheephead," "Kentucky" and " Nazer," the latter 
still holding the lead, with a terrible determination to 
"get there" or burst his heart, although " Kentucky" 
was so close at his heels that within a hundred yards 
of the final line they were neck and neck. 

At this moment the whole conclave of animals 
rushed toward the ropes of the track, and the judges' 
stand, and with one universal roar that we shall never 
forget to our dying day, the two bipeds passed under 
the vine, and at once the nine judges decided unani- 
mously, that the great Plutoniarx perpetual race, human 
and otherwise, was won by the neat, nimble, national 
and notorious NAZER. 

Finis, 



SPANISH LOVE SONG, 



Words and Melody by Col. John A. Joyce. 



Arranged by Hubbard T. Smith. 



Moderate. 



VOICE, 



P'ANO.' 



1. O'er (he hiils and leap 

2. Miiimtain mules wilji.jingJ 

3. Now (he duor do(h o-pl 




1. rills, night and day, night and day, 1 will wan - der to my love, far a - w&y, so fur 

2. bell fond-Iy (ell thro' the dell That my arms will soon en -twine mysweetluve, mine,on-Iy 

3. wide; by her side, by her side Here, for - ev - er I'll a- bide with my bioom-ing' hap-p, 




i. way! J ' ' "3 

Z. niiiia. > l.-3.Tra la la, la !a !a la la la. Tinka tinka tinka (inka ting-, (iv.ka 

3. brido. ' 




Copi/riglit lam i.v John F. Bllia * Co., Wathington. D.C. J F. K.^t C«. a.1 



1. M_v sweet man -do - lin I'll play, night aod day,. night and day! 

2. Gleaming lights Ihro'mooiJit nights, now ap - pear, sparkle near; 

3. And V hile years shall glide a - long, like a song, like a song 



For my love so blithe { 

And my walcbJogiihon-e 

I shall be so kind e 




1. gay, far a - way, far o - way!\ 

2. bark sounds be^fore the morning lark. J l.-S.Tink tinktink link tinktink tink '.ink tmktinktinki 

3. true to my man do-lin and you. 






;,r.B.»c«.»iS 



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iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 

Universal Popular Series 

Selected Novels. 

The following named books are published in similar style and size 
to this volume and are for sale by all newsdealers, at all newsstands, 
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The Universal Publishing Co. 

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1. MR. MEESON'S WILL By H. Rideu Haggard. 

2. MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB By Fergus W. Hdmh. 

3. KING SOLOMON'S MINES By H. Rider Haggard. 

4. SHE By H. Rider Haggard. 

5. JESS By H. Rider Haggard. 

6. ALL IN THE WILD MARCH MORNING. . . By author of Fairy Gold. 

7. LADY MADELEINE'S PRIDE By Dorothy Lancaster. 

8. MAIWA'S REVENGE By H. Rider HAftGARD. 

9. NEZAR, OR ZIG-ZAG PHILOSOPHY By Col. John A. Joyce. 

( Author of Checkered Life and Peculiar Poems, Etc. ) 

10. REBEL FLAG By an old Andersonville Prisoner, late Sergeant 

21st Illinois Infantry. 

Others in Press. 

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Be Sure and Get the Best. 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 

Universal Popular Series 



Selected Novels. 

The following named books are published in similar style and size 
to this volume and are for sale by all newsdealers, at all news stands, 
and on all the trains, or can be obtained from 

The Universal Publishing Co. 

PUBlilSHHHS, 

87 Third Avenue. Chicago. 

1. MR. MEESON'S WILL By H. Rider Haggard. 

2. MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB By Fergus W. Home. 

3. KING SOLOMON'S MINES By H. Rider Haggard. 

4. SHE By H. Rider Haggard. 

5. JESS By H. Rider Haggard. 

6. ALL IN THE WILD MARCH MORNING. . . By author of Fairy Gold. 

7. LADY MADELEINE'S PRIDE By Dorothy Lancaster. 

8. MAIWA'S REVENGE By H. Rider Haggard. 

9. NEZAR, OR ZIG-ZAG PHILOSOPHY By Col. John A, Joyce. 

( Author of Checkered Life and Peculiar Poems, Etc.) 

10. REBEL FLAG By an old Andersonville Prisoner, late Sergeant 

21st Illinois Infantry. 

Others in Press. 

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WL 016 117 761 1 





